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LOHAN'S RUN (IRISH WISH)

© Netflix

Whether it's 'Leap Year' or 'PS I Love You' or 'Wild Mountain Thyme,' we've been down this road before.

Woeful romcoms that trade in dodgy Irish stereotypes and even dodgier Irish accents are nothing new.

So it's all too easy to put the boot into Netflix's latest offering, the Lindsay Lohan vehicle 'Irish Wish' which the streamer has released to coincide with this weekend's St Patrick's festivities.

However Lohan is on something of a long haul back to career rehabilitation after becoming tabloid fodder for many years for her problems with substance abuse, her turbulent love life and her brushes with the law, including prison sentences.

© Netflix

So perhaps her latest movie deserves a fair wind. 

Right?

Expectations in the run-up to the release of Janeen Damian's romcom, though, have been on the floor.

So it's safe to assume we'll have to set this at a very low bar - perhaps ankle height.

© Netflix

Unfortunately, though, 'Irish Wish' comes nowhere near clearing that bar.

Lohan plays Maddie Kelly, a New York based publisher of romantic novels who has a thing for Alexander Vlahos' vain, twinkly eyed and silver tongued Oirish writer Paul Kennedy.

Jane Seymour is her wobbly accented Oirish mum who is the principal of a Des Moines high school and wants Maddie to profess her feelings for Paul.

At a glossy publishing party, Maddie thinks he is going to ask her out, only for him to request that she puts aside hee literary ambitions and work with him on his next novel.

© Netflix

Things go from bad to worse when Paul falls for a friend, Elizabeth Tan's Emma at the party and they subsequently get engaged.

A wedding is planned in Ireland and Maddie is asked to be Emma's bridesmaid, staying at the country pile owned by Paul's well to do family.

When she goes to the auld sod a few days before the wedding, she stumbles upon an ancient Irish wishing chair.

Harangued by Dawn Bradfield's  nutty Saint Brigid, who appears for some reason dressed like she is living in the 1950s, Maddie makes a spontaneous wish for true love.

© Netflix

Suddenly she is transported back to her bed and wakes up to find her life transformed.

With Paul showering in her bathroom, she has entered an alternative world where she's the bride to be.

With that alternative world comes the realisation, though, that her soulmate is somebody else entirely.

Could it be perhaps Ed Speelers' droll English photographer James Thomas who she shared a bus with from Knock Airport?

© Netflix

'Irish Wish' is Lohan's first big starring role since her surprise streaming hit 'Falling for Christmas' in 2022 on Netflix.

That resulted in a deal with the streamer that begat this emerald tinged tale and will see another romcom 'Our Little Secret' later this year.

It's exactly what you expect - a flimsy romcom with ropey jokes and Oirish clichés.

The performances are pretty one dimensional. They're TV movie fluff.

© Netflix

Lohan, Tan, Speelers, Seymour, Ayesha Curry as Maddie's friend Heather and Bradfield know this hokum isn't Beckett, Friel, Carr or O'Casey, so they slog through Kristen Hansen's predictable script.

Special mention, though, should go to Vlahos who manages to trump Matthew Goode and Gerard Butler in the bad Irish accent stakes, often slipping into his natural Welsh brogue.

His character is such a plonker, you wonder if Maddie should have gone to Specsavers.

The script is so dot to dor, it's hardly worth getting worked up about.

© Netflix

The lines are so dull, you suspect the characters' lines were drawn out of a hat.

It's one of those films where from the opening minute, it feels like it's 94 minutes too long.

'Irish Wish' is just another weak vehicle in a garage full of underwhelming Lohan vehicles.

It isn't worth getting exercised about and the lines are so boring there's no perverse pleasure to be had ridiculing them.

© Netflix

You just can't be arsed.

It's a Norwegian Blue of a film that is so lifeless, no Irish household name could be coaxed into collecting a cheque acting in it.

So do yourself a favour. If you want a light Irish comedy this St Patrick's Day weekend, dig out a John Carney movie instead.

You'll get more joy out of five minutes from one of his films than watching all of this.

('Irish Wish' was released on Netflix on the UK and Ireland on March 15, 2024) 

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