Review of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012) by Cedric L — 28 Jun 2013

Okay, where to begin. Firstly, my mother made me watch this with her, so don't give me shit for having horrible taste in movies. Secondarily, this is from the director of Chocolat, which should tell you what I expected of the overall quality of the dialogue, plot, etc. Yet somehow, even my abysmally low expectations were not only NOT MET, they were DISAPPOINTED.

Salmon Fishing on the Yemen is pretty much the ass end of cinema, a painfully derivative and bland film that, as is with all shitty romances, boasts terrible dialogue and glorified adultery. Not like I even give a shit about who cheated on who, because I couldn't care less about the fucking characters. It ended up trying to make the audience root for Ewan McGregor's anal-retentive pretentious douchebag character and boo Emily Blunt's war-hero boyfriend. Bullshit.

Essentially, it's a whimsical, boring, and bland film that nobody should like very much. I can't imagine why this thing was even made. It does nothing that countless crappy romances haven't done before, and it doesn't do it very well. McGregor is unlikable and annoying, Blunt is surprisingly bad, and the dialogue is moronic. In one scene, they actually toast "To fish and faith." DO THE WRITERS NOT REALIZE THAT NOBODY IN THE WORLD TALKS LIKE THAT? Movies are supposed to hold the proverbial mirror up to nature, not create some fantasy world in which everyone talks like pretentious asswipes from Downton Abbey in the 21ST FUCKING CENTURY!

The treatment of the Middle East in this crap film is borderline racist, as well. I hate it when a movie plays Brits off of Arabs and makes the Arabs look like uncivilized and psychotically religious nutballs. It's like those shitty 1930s romance novels that had the young white woman fall in love with the brutish, barbaric Native American. It plays off of stereotypes and I'm not fucking amused by it. Nearly every time the Yemenis talk, there's a little mystic 'call to prayer' kind of thing in the background. It's the anus of cinema.

And if you think that this is just me writing as someone who hates romances, YOU'RE SORELY MISTAKEN. Even I admitted that movies like Chocolat and Titanic probably have some charm to their target audience, but I honestly can't imagine someone being narrow-minded, lonely, and naive enough to enjoy a piece of shit like this. Final Score for Salmon Fishing on the Yemen? I'll be generous: 2/10 stars.