Watch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

Good movie but grossly overrated

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Interesting movie that showed some promise - however ended up with a classically shallow and mildly disappointing love triangle/(square?) that lacked development. Entertaining for what its worth due to the unique blend of some romantic comedy and science, but ultimately lacked depth.

This movie is not meant to be realistic - hence pay no attention to the liberal PC naysayers ringing their hands about poor Yemen and incorrect dialect. Just believe me this film is dull, tedious, and totally derivative. It is meant to be a gentle, wistful comedy/drama about some not very realistic subject. The sort of thing Will Hay and Alec Guinness did for Ealing Studios in the 40s and 50s, and Bill McKenna did for Rank in the late 50s. So a rich Sheikh asks a doubting Euan MacGregor to build a salmon fishing river in the mountains of Yemen with the help of Emily Blunt as PR Manager. Both are attached, but the main thrust of the plot is will they get together. Something you lose interest about halfway through! A huge subplot is the involvement of UK government through foul-mouthed Kristin Scott Thomas playing the PM's Press Secretary looking for a good news story. This is now so hackneyed and predictable that it just grates dreadfully. The script is poorish, full of plot holes ( who built the dam and when?), the direction slow and often lazy, and the acting sluggish and rather disinterested. The only shining light is Rachael Stirling playing MacGregor's wife, who acts everybody else off the screen in a short cameo. Boring in the extreme - it totally fails to draw you in to its idiosyncrasies.

(5%) How did anything based on such a flat, dull, and boring concept ever become an actual entity? This is apparently based on a novel, and I have no idea how the author ever made it to the end without either giving up or losing the will to live; and how the book then went on to actually get published, and somehow by a freak of nature it became popular enough for large amounts of money to be poured into a film with big name stars attached making this one of the great mysteries of cinema, if not the universe. The title itself tells you all you need to know about what happens, but surely there is more to it? Well there is, but not much. McGregor's character is a tedious bore, Blunt, like everyone else, follows him closely behind, and the love square that develops is nothing other than a futile attempt at creating some sort of point to the story, but it really doesn't work because it's overly forced and centred around a sea of charmless emptiness. The worst aspect by far though is McGregor repeating himself over and over that the venture of bringing salmon to Yemen won't work and shouldn't be continued, then about halfway through, and with the movie's plot in total limbo, he out of nowhere changes his mind and begins to support the vision. Once the project is about to be finalised, Blunt hangs around the man made lake in Yemen for little to no purpose. Why is she there? She doesn't do anything, and she isn't needed. Between the bad plot, complete lack of laughs, dragging scenes, flat dialogue, contrived romance, poor pacing, lousy ending, unlikeable dull characters, and total emptiness of it all it is slightly nicely shot. AVOID

It's rare that a literate film like this one manages to make an impact but Salmon Fishing in the Yemen delivers its buried message of peace, true love and faith in a way that simultaneously feels familiar and new. After the screen fades to black you may feel guilty for falling for the love story beneath the rhetoric, but you'll feel refreshed having the characters in the story say all the things we wish we could in real life.An expert on fly fishing Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) gets an e-mail one day from a British financial company managing the wealth of a Yemen sheikh. Financial manager Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) wants to find out if it's possible to stock a Yemen lake with Salmon for Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) who happens to be one of the premier fishermen in the world. When public relations manager Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas) hears of the request she spins it into an international story to promote British/ Yemen relations. Jones and Harriet find themselves falling in love despite their loyalty to wife and fiancé. When combating Yemen forces go against the Sheikh and sabotage his plans, Jones and Harriet get caught in the line of fire but may be damaged more by bad British yellow journalism.Although Ewan McGregor plays a part he is really unsuited for, his Dr. Jones exemplifies the stiff British reserve to unbelievable lengths. Blunt's Harriet as the diametrical opposite of this is an extreme version of, and we know from the get go that these two will find themselves in this love story. It's a movie filled with near-clichéd moments, but thanks to the original story the flick keeps hitting us in a blind spot making the situations and characters feel all very organic.Paul Torday's original novel originated from real-life events as ironic as the film. As an employee working in Yemen for an oil company Torday encountered many outlandish whims of the foreign sheikhs with access to way too much money. Although the novel succeeds through juxtaposition, making an excellent claim that faith is what is missing in modern society, and this has been replaced by shopping, the movie dwells on the near-religious interaction man has with nature.Possibly the real star here is the screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who penned some of the most significant Indie scripts in the last ten years. He wrote the very liberating script for The Full Monty in 1997, proving that men have a particular emotional landscape that is theirs alone. Beaufoy has been capping off a great career in the last few years as well. He won the Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, and also wrote the harrowing 127 Hours in 2010. It's great to watch a movie where characters speak to each other and the viewer is involved in listening rather than just watching a series of pictures.In the film Amr Waked's Sheikh Muhammed says to Jones "Without faith, there is no hope. Without faith, there is no love.", and we understand this to mean to the good doctor that he should have faith in every aspect of his life, including his stiff, formal, unfulfilling marriage to a business woman. The Sheikh's words also land significantly on Harriet's ears whose soldier boyfriend has gone missing in Afghanistan. The film loads the scenes a little too heavy in this regard but we play along.The ending may feel a little too much like wish fulfillment. The good people get rewarded, and the bad people are taken away, but above it all the world community appears to be a better place due to the efforts, and yes faith of all involved. It's still a world filled with love.