Then, to the bemusement of his long-suffering teenage son Billy (Spike White), he flounces out of the house and moves into a hotel. The poor lamb can’t handle her success and when he sees her having a glass of wine with a new colleague (Nathaniel Parker), he is instantly convinced that she is having an affair. Its biggest problem is Rob Brydon’s unlikeable and barely believable lead character Eric Scott, a self-obsessed London accountant who has been feeling neglected ever since his wife Heather (Jane Horrocks) was elected to the local council. There is something inherently funny about a group of flabby, veteran character actors prancing around in budgie smugglers.īut while the synchronised swimming bits are suitably amusing, the film flounders whenever the action leaves the pool. He did, after all, confound all expectations when his dreadful spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn became a moderate hit in 2011.Īnd his variation does have incongruity going for it. Yet Parker has a decent record of making money out of ageing lengths of intertwined fibre. But while 2014’s Pride (miners campaign for Gay Rights) went down well with critics it didn’t make an impression at the box office.Īnd when a group of booze-addled pensioners took up all-in wrestling in this year’s dire comedy Walk Like A Panther, this old rope was looking fatally frayed.
