The Love Punch can be summed up in one of its sequences. In it, our gang of pensioners walks into a hotel in slow motion, with The Clash’s cover of I Fought the Law blaring on the soundtrack. Then we hear the record stop. One of the characters says that she has to pee. It’s funny because old people have to pee all the time. After that, the film returns to their caper, which it plays out with sped up footage. While driven by charismatic performances from the terrific leads, The Love Punch often resorts to the laziest approximations of old people humor.
Once upon a time, Richard and Kate (Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson) were happily married. Now, years after a bitter divorce, they can barely stand to be around each other. But when their pensions are stolen by a shifty French businessman, the two decide to band together and try to get their money back. When their pleas are refused, they resolve to try something a little extraordinary. They hatch a plan to infiltrate the businessman’s impending nuptials, and steal the ten million dollar diamond necklace that he gifted to his fiancée.
There is nothing inherently wrong with making films for older audiences. In fact, given the youth-centered state of our cinema, more mature material would actually be appreciated. But that’s not what this movie delivers. It’s a pandering bit of fluff cinema that simply insultingly assumes that old people don’t want anything too exciting or challenging. Everything about the movie is broad, as if the filmmakers were afraid that its audience wouldn’t get it if it were just a shade subtler. The story is really poorly plotted, the film largely spinning its wheels in a bunch of non-incidents on the way to an underwhelming finale.
The filmmaking follows suit. It’s mainly genial but terribly old-fashioned, often using tricks that went out of style some time in the 60s. The film just has no drive. An early car chase feels as sedate as a Sunday drive. And once we actually get to the heist, the film hardly bothers to create any tension in any of the scenes. The filmmakers don’t really seem to care much about the demands of this particular genre of film. It is far more interested in lazy jokes about how old people are a certain way while young people are another way.
The film leans hard on the considerable charm of its leads. Pierce Brosnan still carries the swagger of James Bond, even when playing up the creakiness of his body parts. Emma Thompson is always a sheer delight. The writing does neither actor any favors, but the two look fairly good together, and share some decent chemistry. Cute little turns from Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie offer the film a bit of life. But all in all, the excess of talent in the cast doesn’t quite translate into anything truly worth recommending.
At one point in The Love Punch, Pierce Brosnan is made to strike his classic James-Bond-with-a-gun pose. For all the charm that Brosnan still possesses, he cannot acquit himself from the sheer lameness of the moment. The film, bearing no real appeal of its own, has to break out of its own fragile reality to embarrassingly reference Brosnan’s turn as 007. But it’s there because it’s an easy joke that old people will presumably get. Old-fashioned isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The history of cinema is filled with greatness, and drawing from that history can provide real joy. But here it is very much a bad thing, the sign of a filmmaker with nothing left to say.
My Rating:
