Ahh, British Comedy, it is in a category of its own and generally always gives what it promises. As you can tell, I liked this movie for its clever wit and simple intelligence of the main characters and the cunning schemes that they pulled. As Baldrik would say in Black Adder, I have a cunning plan. And their plans were very cunning, very clever, and quite amusing at that.Shooting Fish is about a couple of orphans, one from New York and one from England. The one from New York was a con-man who was very clever at getting money. At the age of 8 he was caught by the IRS putting money into a bank account in the Chase-Manhattan Bank. The question was, what was he doing with a bank account. The other, Jeremy, is an electronic genius and when both of them get together they are able to fleece money out of everybody.The movie opens with a little scheme where they are demonstrating a talking computer to a lot of businessmen and manage to gain lots of money off of them. The girl that they hired, a medical student, is a but suspicious but they convince her that it is all very Robin Hood - steal from the rich and give to the poor. The thing they don't tell her is that they are the poor that they give to. After they finish this scheme, they catch thieves breaking into their car and stealing a computer. At first I thought they were simple thieves, but when we visit their house and see that it is extremely opulent, I realised that they were in fact industrial spies.They live in a huge water tower in what is a home of clever gadgets and secret rooms. They are trying to save up two million dollars to buy a mansion and they salvage anything to use in their schemes to make money. Some of them are for ten thousand at a time, while others are simply fifty pound jobs where they move insulation from one house to another. It is interesting that during the insulation scam, they leave the poorer lady alone while they fleece the richer ones.Shooting Fish is a great little movie. It is not one of deep themes, it is a simple enjoyable movie where those cast out of society take back what was theirs in clever little schemes, and even though they spend a few months in gaol, it does have a happy ending. The thing I really liked is that the judge was dressed in purple. That simply shows me that they bothered to research the English courts and do a decent job at it. This movie is cool.

There's something wrong about dropping an American con-artist into London, but somehow here it works. There are lots of potential reasons not to like this film, but most of them don't seem to really matter. It just works, anyway.Maybe it's because this was the first time I ever saw Kate Beckinsale, and I was just stunned.Anyway, I was hugely amused when I heard that there was a boycott organized against this film by some people who thought it was going to be about someone shooting at fish (bang, bang). Poor fishies. No, of course, it's no such thing.If you haven't seen this, then I can pretty much guarantee that you will not waste your time if the opportunity comes up.

Ha! What a romp! Although not as funny...'Shooting Fish' is in the same tradition as 'Saving Grace' and 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.' Very silly and very entertaining British humor. My daughter and I enjoyed several belly laughs with this one and she even figured out the title without having to be told. And added feature was the delightful sound track!It's rare to find a modern movie you can watch with a 14 year old and both enjoy! And I have to say, Kate Beckinsale, 'Emma' (1997) (TV) series fame, is a winsome doll. It won't work to try and make much sense of this movie...just think of it as The Odd Couple (Dan Futterman, Stuart Townsend) on Virgin Atlantic.

Poor acting. Poor directing. "Humor" that is weakly attempted and trite, not the English wit that I am used to - not once did I laugh, although half the lines in the movie are intended to make one do so. The plot is ridiculous, which I assume is intended to make for a zany romp, but it's not creative or inspired enough to justify its lack of plausibility. The "charismatic" actors are without charm and give uninspired performances to roles with good deal of potential. The music in some scenes is almost as dull and inappropriately chosen as the female lead, who is about as dull and inappropriate as you can get.All in all, the whole thing seems thrown together by a pair of adolescent males who were told by their $60-for-three-weeks scriptwriting class instructor that they were "talented" and so decided to go off and write and direct their own movie. This flick tries and fails at every turn to be cute. It is so bad it made me go through the IMDB.com registration process, in the hopes that I can save just one of you from having to watch it.Remember, just because your girlfriend tells you she thinks your script is cute, and that "you're so creative, you should become a filmmaker," it doesn't mean its true!