If you love Peter O'Toole
If you come to this movie as a fan of Peter O'Toole (Which is the ONLY reason I came to it at all) I think you will appreciate it much more than most of the posters. I would even go so far as to say that any Peter O'Toole fan would really like this movie - as we love everything he does.
I only watched this movie because I did a Netflix search on Mr. O and it came up. I certainly would not have selected it based upon title or plot.
I was thrilled to see the added surprise bonuses of Alicia Silverstone (Childhood crush), the always incredible Joan Plowright, and my all time favorite curmudgeon "Doc Martin" - Martin Clunes.
It is always so amusing to watch Mr. O' play the stuffy upper crust English Gentleman - as he did in films like "Ratatouille", "King Ralph" (Yes, he was the only redeeming part of that piece of ...), "High Spirits", "The Last Emperor", "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", and so on. It is so amusing because if you look at his filmography, most of the time he is playing the rebel who eschews convention, class, and rules. Starting with "Lawrence of Arabia" and all the way through "Venus" (He was robbed on the academy award on that one, as was the case in so many others.)
He is such a magnificent actor, and there is something about him that makes you wish he would take you under his wings and embrace you as a comrade in arms (He gives the greatest hugs I have ever seen - only Dear Old Dad gave better.)
Yes this was a kind of rote, silly movie. And they asked him to do some very silly things. (If you watch the outtakes during the credits you will see that they asked him to do even sillier things.) But he was game, and he put his heart and soul into everything - even if he was thinking to himself "This is awfully silly".
If you focus on Peter O'Toole's story and consider the rest of it silly fluff, you might appreciate this movie a great deal more.