+ Worst Poster of the Year + Most Deserved Flop of the Year
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| Russell Crowe looking humored in a bright shirt in a sunny place is all that this poster for Ridley Scott's A Good Year features |
A successful, London-based banker as unendurable as nails on a blackboard inherits a chateau in Provence, France. Over there, he meets a beautiful woman (Marion Cotillard (From the Land of the Moon/Mal de Pierres (2016))) and turns into a bon vivant within a week or so.
As is obvious from the above, the story is as sappily predictable as it is utterly ridiculous. Russell Crowe (War Machine (2017)) feels like a big lion squeezed into a ballerina's outfit in this hideous cliché picture, the only comedy attempted ever by English master filmmaker Ridley Scott (Hannibal (2001)), whose 16th feature it is. The story has come to be this film, because Scott owns a house in Provence and likes it there. - No kidding! It is written by Marc Klein (Serendipity (2001)), based on the same-titled 2004 novel by Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence (1989)), one of Scott's neighbors in the area.
We expect more than this from Scott, and rightly we should. He fares better in films with some darkness and conflict, (which is almost completely lacking in A Good Year), but he has stated in explanation: "I'm very attracted to comedy. At the end of the day, because you've been having a good old laugh, you go home laughing — as opposed to dealing with blood all day and you go home and want to cut your wrists." This is a troubling statement in light of his brother, also master filmmaker Tony Scott's tragic suicide in 2012 and also considering the string of usually bloody, dark films that Ridley Scott is engaged in either as director and/or as producer.
You will likely smile a few times while watching A Good Year, and probably enjoy the acting by young, cute Brit Freddie Highmore (Arthur and the Invisibles/Arthur et les Minimoys (2006)). But that will be about it. A Good Year is a trifle that is almost an insult; a film made for women's magazines, a filmmaker's lazy stroll in the yard - and little else.
Ridley Scott: Prometheus (2012) or, Even Then, Space Eggs Were Bad News
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Robin Hood (2010) - R. Scott's grand film of the English legend
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Body of Lies (2008) - R. Scott's terror actioner is a fatiguing turkey
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American Gangster (2007) - Great American - now black - gangster picture
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Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Blade Runner (1982) director's cut - Visual extravaganza, great SF
Alien (1979) or, Space Eggs Are Bad News
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 42 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.2 times its cost)
[A Good Year premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario, Canada) and runs 118 minutes. Shooting took place in 9 weeks in 2005 in London, England, and in France. The film opened #10 to a 3.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it only declined from there, grossing 7.4 mil. $ (17.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 7.2 mil. $ (17.1 %) and Spain with 4.2 mil. $ (10 %). It made in excess of 7 mil. $ on home video sales domestically, which would not change the film's 'big flop' status if figured into the equation. Scott returned with American Gangster (2007). Crowe returned in 3:10 to Yuma (2007). A Good Year is rotten at 25 % with a 4.79/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of A Good Year?
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