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Storyline
Curator Harry Deane is an expert in fine art, but he's equally accomplished in taking abuse from his insolent boss. That's about to change. The plan - trick the avid art collector into buying a fake Monet painting. To assist in the heist, Deane hires a rowdy Texas cowgirl to help him fool the richest man in England. But as the plan begins to unravel, Deane finds he is falling in love with the rodeo queen, ensuing further complications. Written by
Anonymous
Plot Summary
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Taglines:
A fake masterpiece. The perfect plan.
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Motion Picture Rating
(MPAA)
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive content, partial nudity and a rude gesture
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Did You Know?
Goofs
In the karaoke scene PJ takes off her hairpin with her right hand while holding the microphone in her left. In the next shot the microphone is in her right hand and the hairpin is in her left.
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Quotes
[
first lines]
The Major:
[
narrating]
This is the story of my brave, foolish friend Harry Deane. Mr. Deane's work as a curator in London had gone, he felt, largely unappreciated. He told me of countless insults suffered at the hands of his employer, Lionel Shahbandar, media tycoon, art collector, and an absolute brute of a fellow.
Lionel Shahbandar:
[
covered in mud]
Do not touch my person! You, idiot...
Man:
Yes, my lord.
Lionel Shahbandar:
...give me your boot.
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Connections
Referenced in
Unikal'noe pozdravlenie (2014)
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Soundtracks
One O'Clock Jump
Performed by The Guy Barker Nonet
Written by
Count Basie (as William Basie)
Published by EMI Partnership Ltd
Master courtesy of Shabandar Productions Ltd
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Colin Firth obviously wanted a less taxing role after stammering as King George VI. In this remake of a Sixties Michael Caine comic 'caper' he plays a disgruntled art dealer who decides to trick his unpleasant billionaire boss into buying a fake Monet. Shirley MacLaine's Hong Kong dancer roped in as co-conspirator and candy-floss in the 1966 version has became a Texas rodeo queen - Cameron Diaz doing her best with a one-dimensional part.
Alan Rickman does an appropriately pantomime turn as the monstrously egotistical tycoon and gets some of the movie's most embarrassing scenes, but he seems to be having fun. Colin Firth makes a visible effort to enjoy losing his pants on a ledge outside the Savoy Hotel, but the role would have perhaps been easier for Hugh Grant. Stanley Tucci plays a German art expert who may (or may not) be inspired by Albert Schweitzer. The London scenes are livelier than the scenes at Rickman's Downtonesque country house, though a farting dowager moment targets a younger audience than this is likely to pull in.
This piece of fluff comes from the Coen brothers who usually apply themselves to something zanier and zingier. If they wanted to revamp a comedy heist movie, why didn't they take on Peter Ustinov's all-star Istanbul romp TOPKAPI (1964) or, if they wanted to keep the budget down, Warren Beatty's KALEIDOSCOPE, also from 1966, which had more pace and plot than the original GAMBIT but not such deft performances? It's really only the actors who raise this year's GAMBIT from being potentially dire into something that is merely mediocre.