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"Director: Don McKellar; Screenwriter: Michael Dowse, Ken Scott; Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Taylor Kitsch, Liane Balaban, Gordon Pinsent, Rhonda Rodgers; Running time: 113 mins; Certificate: 12A  Brendan Gleeson is perfectly cast in The Grand Seduction, a comedy drama that aims to send up the postcard image of rural life. Unfortunately, Canadian director Don McKellar falls into his own trap with a storytelling style that wavers between wry cynicism and twee romanticism. Taylor Kitsch (Battleship, John Carter) loses some of that action hero bulk to play Dr Paul Lewis, but he still looks out of place in a small fishing village where he is forced to act as GP after getting caught with cocaine at customs. Just the name, Tickle Cove, is enough to conjure a picture of seaside tranquillity, but on the contrary, the fishing business has dried up and its residents need to find an alternative source of revenue or else up sticks and move to town.  Lewis&amp;#039;s appointment is all part of an unlikely, elaborate master plan hatched by Gleeson&amp;#039;s wily old seadog Murray who is trying to land a contract with an oil company that will turn Tickle Cove into a recycling plant for a big bad oil company (kerching). As if that wasn&amp;#039;t coldly pragmatic enough, Murray intercepts the doc&amp;#039;s private calls and uses every bit of intimate detail (including awkward phone sex with his girlfriend) to manipulate him into staying. The elderly ladies at the telephone exchange are the butt of an obvious gag here (ooh-err missus), but the bigger problem is the one weighing on Gleeson&amp;#039;s shoulders, having to dredge his reserves of natural charm to overcome the mean edge that allows Murray to overstep the mark. Murray&amp;#039;s own heartbreak at watching his wife leave for town doesn&amp;#039;t do much to draw sympathy, but eventually his conscience does begin to nag at him. That is inevitable because McKellar frames his antihero in a no-man&amp;#039;s land of a film that isn&amp;#039;t quite dark enough to be a black comedy, nor sincere enough to warm the cockles. You may feel sorry for the doc except that he is far too gullible. One of the locals suggests leaving banknotes on the jetty for him to find (to make him feel blessed) and that is funny \u00E2\u20AC\u201C the first couple of times. But after plucking the third note out of the slats, the doc begins looking like a moron.  Gleeson is a strong anchor and brings some complexity to his part; it&amp;#039;s just that he isn&amp;#039;t served well by a script that too often mistakes bluntness for irony. There were greater depths here that needed plumbing.  Kitsch is utterly beige in an underwritten role and the natives are colourful without any shading. McKellar takes cues from 1983 classic Local Hero, adding a post-modern twist that fails to compensate for thinly sketched characters. Lianne Balaban plays the scruffy but scowling beauty that catches the doc&amp;#039;s eye and threatens to make things more interesting \u00E2\u20AC\u201C alas, their relationship is all friction and no sparks. Gleeson is a strong anchor and brings some complexity to his part; it&amp;#039;s just that he isn&amp;#039;t served well by a script that too often mistakes bluntness for irony. There were greater depths here that needed plumbing.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a591053/the-grand-seduction-review-brendan-gleeson-tries-to-woo-taylor-kitsch/>