Gambit (2012)

A very entertaining, witty and well acted comedy heist! With an all star cast including Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz and Alan Rickman. Cameron Diaz in particular plays the part of the charming, brassy Texan rodeo queen superbly and shines in every scene.

I spent more than half the film laughing and the rest intrigued. It has enough plot development to keep you guessing and interested until the end and enough depth and development of the characters to be believable and touching. In addition to this the sets and costumes are sumptuous and really add to the entertainment value of the film in a surprising way.

There is a lovely cameo part from the red haired chap from Green Wing as an employee at the savoy hotel who keeps catching Firth in a series of embarrassing situations during one evening. It will never be 'The Shawshank Redemption' in terms of critics' approval but I don't think it is trying to be - if you want a smart, entertaining, funny film to watch you won't be disappointed with this. I would watch it again which is always a good barometer of a film.

Fmovies: It uses a lot of puns; the hotel 'major' reference will leave you rolling. This movie doesn't beat you over the head with unrealistic comedy, nor does it over-explain the jokes, some of the humor is quite subtle. The younger crowd who love Seth Rogan-type movies will not 'get' this movie. Yet, Gambit is well written, and is a fun romp of witty entertainment. Alan Rickman (rip) was great as well as all the cast. BTW - they actually do have dog-riding cowmonkeys in Texas rodeos:).

I was prepared to like this film as I'd seen the original Gambit. This film however, had a completely different story line. Colin Firth does his best with it and there are a couple of smiley moments, especially when he loses his trousers climbing round a hotel ledge but it is not enough. The film is very short, and when it ends you wonder what possessed the Coen Brothers to make it. Cameron Diaz is extremely irritating and the character goes nowhere. Tom Courtenay was wasted in his role and some of the so called funny situations are too contrived ie when they book into the London hotel. The twists in the tale aren't twists at all, just cop outs. It just seems a pointless film and is not clever or funny enough. Colin Firth is a brilliant actor but sometimes his lightweight film choices are very strange. A disappointment.

Gambit fmovies. I'm not sure why it got so many low ratings. It's one of those movies I've passed over many times, despite my love for Colin Firth, because reviews were so low. Finally, Redbox sold out of anything better, I gave it a try and now I'm so glad I did.

If you're looking for Oceans 11 or The Italian Job type intricacies in the plot, it isn't going to happen. However, it's still cute and interesting with enough of a twist to be worth it. Where this show really shines is in the hilarious writing - the insults and comments are really really funny - and in the acting abilities of Colin Firth and Alan Rickman. Both do tremendous jobs. Colin Firth can take impossibly stupid situations, the kind Steve Martin and Ben Stiller do, situations almost painful in how absurd and moronic they are, and yet he makes them hilarious. A guy on a hotel ledge several stories up, no pants, is old old old, but Colin Firth makes it remarkably entertaining, as if this is the first time you've ever seen that scenario in a movie. Alan Rickman plays a SOB like no one else and he's the total jerk you love anyway (think his Sheriff of Nottingham role) because he's just so good at it and his muttered comments and blatant insults keep you busting out in laughs. I got to the point I was jotting down some of the lines in the show, and thinking I may need to go back to the beginning to write down others, because they're absurd, clever, and all-together brilliant.

If you need lots of intricate plot twists and details - maybe not for you. If you enjoy understated yet remarkably hilarious verbal humor, witty comeback, diverting insult and repartee, ridiculous colloquialisms and a few side-splitting guffaws, this is the show for you.

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.

This film is about an art curator who decides to seek revenge on his horrible boss by tricking him to buy a fake Monet painting.

"Gambit" is a delightful lighthearted comedy about a heist that deviates from the plan. The original plan that Harry had was displayed in the beginning ten minutes of the film, then the rest of the run time is about how things do not go according to plan. Actually everything goes wrong and the situation becomes so hilarious. Colin Firth is great as a frustrated and disgruntled art curator, while Cameron Diaz is charming with her distinctive accent. She makes her character so interesting, her mischievous simplicity is a sharp contrast to how she gets things done in a well controlled manner. The ending twists are well executed, making it a truly Coen script. I find "Gambit" funny and entertaining.