A Good Year (12A)

If Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant ever make a bloody, testosterone-drenched historical epic, it couldn't be more embarrassing than A Good Year, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe's would-be frothy comedy about a City trader who inherits a vineyard in Provence.

Squeezed uncomfortably into a suit and a Hooray Henry accent, Crowe learns of the death of his estranged uncle (Albert Finney), and flies to the family's sun-glazed estate in the south of France. He fully intends to sell the property and return to his soulless life in London, but, shockingly enough, he grows fond of the old place, just as he grows fond of the most beautiful girl in the region - she's unattached, naturally - who's sensitively introduced with a crotch-level shot of her skirt whipping up in the breeze. A Good Year is a bad film. Yes, it's corny, inconsequential and unbelievable, but the real trouble is that Scott and Crowe wouldn't know comedy if it hit them over the head with a Burgundy bottle.