Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson play a pair of bickering middle-aged exes who turn to jewel robbery after a crooked French financier loots their pension funds in jaunty caper comedy The Love Punch – and their breezy good-humoured charm goes a long way to compensate for dodgy plotting and some truly feeble gags. Roping former neighbours Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie into their scheme, the duo head for the Cote d’Azur, planning to gate-crash the fraudster’s opulent wedding and make off with the £10million diamond he has lavished on his bride to be. During the ensuing heist, the jokes are as creaky as the would-be robbers’ ageing bodies, but Thompson’s air of wry disdain and Brosnan’s frisky playfulness are enormously winning – and the sight of the quartet ridiculously togged out in scuba suits to sneak into the villain’s domain is a hoot.
Certificate 12. Runtime 90 mins. Director Joel Hopkins.
Released on DVD & Blu-ray by Entertainment One.
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