Based chiefly on the first book of Kyril Bonfiglioli’s “The Mortdecai Trilogy”, “Don’t Point that Thing at Me”, Mortdecai follows the exploits of shady, would-be aristocratic, art dealer Charlie Mortdecai (Depp) and his thuggish manservant Jock Strapp (Bettany) as they are co-opted by the authorities to help find a stolen painting that is rumoured to contain the secret to a fortune in Nazi gold. Juggling the priorities of Inspector Martland(McGregor), ‘the Russians’, international terrorists and his impossibly leggy wife Johanna (Paltrow), Mortdecai must weasel his way around the lot if he’s going to pocket any of the proceeds himself and keep out of Her Royal Majesty’s ‘big house’.

Mortdecai is a colourful, farcical caper film that again gives Johnny Depp an excuse to overact and pretend he’s British. The film sees Depp reunite with writer/director David Koepp slightly more than a decade after the pair collaborated on the frequently underrated thriller Secret Window. Mortdecai aims to be far less of a low-key affair than that previous collaboration with its backers no doubt aiming to spin out a franchise should this picaresque jaunt make any money – exactly the kind of cynical scheming that Charlie Mortdecai himself would be proud of.