What a strange animal A Good Year is. There are several things that make the film somewhat fascinating. First of all it proves conclusively that Russell Crowe is not capable of anything. He may be on the short list of the best actors working, but he cannot do Cary Grant any more than Ridley Scott can do Frank Capra. Clearly Scott was trying on a different hat, but this maddeningly meandering, sun-dappled disaster makes the somewhat similar Under the Tuscan Sun look like Citizen Cane.

Crowe plays a ruthless and brilliant head of a stockbroking outfit whose life revolves around money his quest to make as much of it he can. Through flashbacks we learn that he was orphaned as a boy and raised by an eccentric vintner (Albert Finney) who taught the young Crowe the ways of the world according to his unique world-view. Lessons that have been entirely lost on the Machiavellian grown up version. Once the old man passes on Crowe must fly to France to see to the disposition of the winery and estate that he's been willed.

No matter what trailer you might have seen, you know that Crowe is to meet the woman of his dreams and face a midlife crossroads between a pastoral life of love and leisure and his much beloved position of envied financial whiz. Adding to the dilemma is the properties caretaker and expert vintner as well as an American waif who shows up at the door claiming to be the long lost illegitimate daughter of the lord of the manor. None of these subplots end up amounting to squat and strangely the woman who is destined to throw Crowe's life into a quandary doesn't really enter the picture in any real way until halfway through the last act, thus their relationship doesn't even come close to resonating in the way the film-makers intended. It rings every bit as false as Crowe's attempt at physical comedy.

His transition from brutal capitalist, to charming small town interloper isn't effective and the ending is so utterly predictable and disappointing that it fits in well with the rest of this wrong-headed, poorly executed waste of talent. The film was in and out of theaters in the blink of an eye, in fact I wound up seeing it at the dollar theater only two weeks after it's release.