Hot Chocolate (1992 TV Movie)
2/10
Straight up, this is a bad film
3 December 2006
This is a romantic comedy about a Texan business woman (BJ Cassidy - Bo Derek) who sets off to France to purchase a dying French Chocolate Truffles company for tax offset reasons.

The owner and manager of the chocolate company is a moron "Count" frenchman with a sidekick jack-of-all-trades businessman (Eric - Robert Hays). The Count really is a moron, has no idea what he is doing and has no brain for business at all.

So BJ comes to France and is pursued by Eric and a fling ensues... with confusion and side plots and hijinks.

OK, so the basic plot outline sorta sounds OK-ish, but I tell you this film is boring and annoying.

I think the entire dialogue was dubbed over as the lip-synching was off and the sound effects and dialogue sounding unnatural. The acting is atrocious and numerous plot elements do not make sense.

For a high powered business woman managing a billion dollar company in cut-throat corporate America, BJ seems to find everything funny. Corporate fraud by the chocolate factory makes her giggle, getting her car run off the road makes her giggle, getting into a very corny fling with someone and getting lied to makes her just smile a bit less, when she should be upset.

According to this film, when BJ smiles she is normal. When she shows her teeth she is happy. When she just has a smirk, she is bitterly angry. There is no acting here...

Apparently all French people also speak English, even when talking to each other?? The supposed romantic scenes just left me bored stiff. So I actually paid some attention to the plot instead and was amazed by how stupid many plot twists are and how many things just don't make sense.

BJ wants to buy a company for $8m without any due diligence process (all she says is "there's holes in the books"). BJ falls in love easily for a rich high-powered business woman (i.e. stupid) even when the hero doesn't even do much. Eric knows business so well, yet he doesn't actually help the count to fix the company. Eric is plainly American even though his family has been servants to the Count's family for generations (so why is he then not French also??).

I didn't like any of the characters. French stereotyping (all passion and no brains and lazy), Bo Derek smiling at everyone, the hero of the film not actually doing very much, the script trying to be funny and failing badly and romantic scenes that are just boring.

I'm sure Vince Cassel would prefer you didn't know he was in this film. He plays a moron thug... badly coz he's not given anything worthwhile to do.

My sister bought this for me. I will notify her she has bad taste in films, coz she liked this.

This is a girl who thought Braveheart was boring....

In summary, the script is woefully unfunny and boring, plot holes and confusion aplenty, shocking acting, very corny and shallow.

Avoid as the bad score above suggests. 2/10.
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