Keen salmon fishing enthusiast Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) decides it would be a good wheeze if he didn't have to travel all the way to Scotland, so decides to create a salmon river in the parched desert of his native Yemen. He is assisted in this by Miss Fixit dollybird Harriet double-barrelled something or other (Emily Blunt) and po-faced fish scientist Fred (Ewan McGregor) who has been put on the case by pushy civil servant Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), who scents that there is political capital to be made.
I saw this whimsical comedy / drama / romance in a small cinema auditorium which was quite full: most of the other audience members were older than I am (and I'm pushing 60). They had gone, I think, on the assumption that here was a charming British comedy in a similar vein to Best Exotic Hotel Marigold (albeit loaded up with a few F bombs), and there was some chuckling, it is true.
The problem with this movie, though, is that it is terribly contrived and therefore completely unbelievable. The whimsical central notion would fall to pieces at the firs hint of serious feasibility studies, the Blunt / McGregor romance is barely credible, the 3rd side of the romantic triangle (or 4th if you include McGregor's wife) is obviously bolted on simply for a last minute bit of drama, and the denouements are scarcely as credible as the rest of it - I didn't believe any of the character behaviour for a second.
On the plus side, the scenery looks good, Waked gives a dignified and pleasing performance, and Scott Thomas is hilarious and steals the show.
I saw this whimsical comedy / drama / romance in a small cinema auditorium which was quite full: most of the other audience members were older than I am (and I'm pushing 60). They had gone, I think, on the assumption that here was a charming British comedy in a similar vein to Best Exotic Hotel Marigold (albeit loaded up with a few F bombs), and there was some chuckling, it is true.
The problem with this movie, though, is that it is terribly contrived and therefore completely unbelievable. The whimsical central notion would fall to pieces at the firs hint of serious feasibility studies, the Blunt / McGregor romance is barely credible, the 3rd side of the romantic triangle (or 4th if you include McGregor's wife) is obviously bolted on simply for a last minute bit of drama, and the denouements are scarcely as credible as the rest of it - I didn't believe any of the character behaviour for a second.
On the plus side, the scenery looks good, Waked gives a dignified and pleasing performance, and Scott Thomas is hilarious and steals the show.