This is the rather preposterous tale of a Middle Eastern Sheik who is being wooed by different Wall Street Hedge Funds who want to get hold of his oil billions to invest.  High-flying broker Colin is despatched to charm the reluctant Emirate who is on the verge on signing up with a rival Firm. Colin knows that every man has a weakness (his own in meaningless sex with blonde bimbos) and he is determined to establish what his ‘mark’s’ is and fulfill it, and thus win the lucrative account.

Turns out that the man who lives in the middle of the desert is a pigeon fancier, and if that is not ridiculous enough, he lusts after the World Champion Pigeon who is owned by a Belgian breeder who refuses to part with it, even for a kings ransom.  Colin declares he will do the seemingly impossible and obtain this precious bird and bag the account too.

Next stop is Flanders in Belgium and traveling under a false name and a convoluted story about looking for an the grave of an ancestor who had died there in World War 2, he worms his way into the local village to track down his prey without alerting anyone to his mission.  Pauwels the elderly Breeder has an attractive 30 something-year-old granddaughter called Isabelle, and Colin soon works out that the way to getting his hands on the pigeon is by getting his arms around the girl first.

He easily wins her heart but not Pauwels’s, so when push comes to shove Colin has to revert to his usual mode of ‘dirty tricks’ in order to successfully blackmail the old man into selling the pigeon, and so naturally both Pauwels and Isabelle end up hating him.

Back in New York, and a happy Sheik signs away his billion dollar account, and Colin gets very rich from his fat bonus and promotion.  But despite this, he is totally miserable, and even his quick usual one-night stands are no longer doing it for him.  Colin is in love, and he knows that he will have to give up all his worldly trappings and undo his dirty deeds and get the wretched pigeon back if he is to get the girl in the final reel.  

This well-meaning and extremely predicable and somewhat silly tale will find an appreciative for one reason only.  It stars the Northern Ireland hunky heartthrob actor Jamie Dornan who is about to be elevated to the Hollywood ‘A’ List when the much-hyped ’50 Shades of Grey’ opens soon.  Dornan puts in a good performance but the whole thing is hardly a stretch for him or Charlotte De Bruyne his co-star.

Written and directed by an Oscar nominated filmmaker Dominique Deruddere, the movie was a smash hit when it opened in Belgium in April. We will however have to wait a while longer to see if Jamie really can make this wee film fly. 

★★★★★★