One generation’s silver fox is another’s creepy old sex pest, and Pierce Brosnan doesn’t have the comic chops, or even the facial expressions, to bridge the gap here. He plays a womanising English professor who can’t talk to a woman without checking out her behind as she walks away – and this wrong-headed romcom pretty much follows suit, ogling its female leads and giving his chauvinist pig an easy ride.
Having attempted to settle down in California with his “yank totty” student (Jessica Alba), Brosnan gets an undeserved second chance with her sister (a stereotypically fiery Salma Hayek), in a sitcom-level story that’s packed with contrivance and cliche. Lowlights include a sub-When Harry Met Sally fake-orgasm scene, a frankly surreal detour into people-trafficking, and Brosnan bonding with his father and son by the three of them pissing off a pier together. Who says romance is dead?
