Simon Callow

Eddie and Paul are Americans out on parole and working for the very demanding Louie in a greasy spoon. Paul is quirky, acts like a spoiled brat and wants to make movies and Eddie likes comic books. The viewer occasionally gets to see one of the comic books he's reading, and no, the hero is not Blue Iguana. Katherine, a pretty English lawyer, comes in the restaurant to make a deal with Eddie and Paul. She knows what they are capable of doing, and she offers $20,000 each if they will help her with a job in London. They want $30,000 each, and they want to avoid hurting anyone and she reluctantly agrees. As for how to get Louie to let them off work, Katherine has heard enough of his conversation with them to tell Louie she can get him in lots of trouble. So the three travel to London (laws are broken to get the guys there, as we find out when she needs to use this against them) and meet with Katherine's cousin Tommy and Cornelius, who we later learn was passed over for Elijah Wood in the role of a Hobbit because he was too tall (or that's what he says). The job is simple. At a museum, Paul and Eddie steal what looks like a children's backpack, and is referred to as a "rucksack". Someone who looks like Ken Jennings gets in the way and the blue bag, as it is called, is gone. Someone else wants whatever is in that blue bag. Deacon is a really nasty man who runs a pub. Some people call him "Billy Ray Cyrus" because of his hair. Late in the movie someone does a bad impression of Cyrus singing "Achy Breaky Heart" to make fun of him. Deacon and two bumbling idiots take over a restaurant--the accomplices put on aprons to look like they work there--and Eddie, Paul and Katherine meet and Deacon and his crew get away with the bag. Arkady is a successful businessman and not particularly nice. He is working with Deacon, but Katherine was also supposed to get him the contents of that bag in order to pay off a huge debt. He will settle for being told how to find the Americans. Believing Arkady will kill them, Katherine refuses and once again she owes Arkady a huge debt. Eddie and Paul want to quit but Katherine points out they can now get in so much trouble they will be jailed in Britain. Eddie, Paul, Katherine and Tommy set up a surveillance operation across the street from Deacon's place, in an empty building with street-style art. Eventually, Katherine discovers Arkady is after a valuable diamond called the Blue Iguana, given by a Turkish prince to his fiancee, who then loses it gambling. And so our heroes try various schemes to get their hands on the Blue Iguana and return it to its rightful owner. In one case, they are not allowed in a hotel because a zombie movie is being filmed, but when they set off an explosion for an unrelated reason, they are covered with blood and easily pass for cast members. Paul manages to convince a tough, intelligent bartender named Dawn he works for NASA and starts a relationship with her. There are other incidents which turn violent and people are killed. Katherine also has dirt on Arkady which she can use.

Old bitter miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Simon Callow) who makes excuses for his uncaring nature learns real compassion when three ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve. This movie begins with a live-action sequence set in Boston in 1857, the site of a live reading by renowned novelist Dickens (Simon Callow). As he begins his "story of ghosts", a woman in the audience screams because she has seen a mouse, and Dickens points out that this is appropriate since his story begins with a mouse. At this point, the story turns into the animated version, and Dickens explains that the mouse, named Gabriel, carries a glimmer of hope amidst the glaring co-existence of rich and poor in the streets of London. Throughout the subsequent unfolding of the well-known story Gabriel acts as a miniature Greek chorus, providing younger members of the audience with a point of entry into the story and, in the case of the potentially frightening elements (the Ghosts of Past (Jane Horrocks), Present (Sir Michael Gambon), and Future), a place of refuge.

The film follows the adventures of a group of friends through the eyes of Charles (Hugh Grant), a debonair but faux pas-prone Englishman, who is smitten with Carrie, an attractive American (Andie MacDowell), whom Charles repeatedly meets at weddings and at a funeral. The first wedding is that of Angus (Timothy Walker) and Laura (Sara Crowe), at which Charles is the best man. Charles and his collection of single friends wonder if they will ever get married. At this wedding, Charles meets Carrie for the first time and spends the night with her. Carrie teases him by pretending that, now they have been to bed together, they will also have to get married, which Charles endeavors to respond to before realizing she is joking. She then goes back home to America, observing that they may have missed an opportunity. The second wedding is that of Bernard (David Haig) and Lydia (Sophie Thompson), a couple who got together at the previous wedding. Rowan Atkinson makes his second appearance, this time as a fully-fledged but gaffe-prone priest conducting his first wedding ceremony through his connection as a friend of the family. Charles is happy to discover that Carrie is attending the wedding, until she introduces him to her fiance, Sir Hamish Banks (Corin Redgrave), a wealthy politician from Scotland. At the reception, Charles finds himself seated at a table with several ex-girlfriends who relate embarrassing stories about his inability to be discreet, and afterwards bumps into Henrietta (known among Charles' friends as "Duckface"), with whom he had a difficult relationship. As the evening wears on, Charles finds himself in an empty hotel suite watching Carrie and Hamish leave in a taxicab, only to be trapped in the bath after the newlyweds suddenly stumble into the room to have sex. After Charles awkwardly exits the room, Henrietta confronts him about his habit of "serial monogamy", telling him that he is afraid of letting anyone get too close to him. Shortly after this encounter, Charles runs into Carrie (without her fiance), and they end up spending another night together. A few months later, Charles receives an invitation to Carrie's wedding in Scotland. While shopping for a present in London he accidentally bumps into Carrie in a shop and ends up helping her select her wedding dress. Carrie also astonishes him with a list of her more than thirty sexual partners (he learns he is #32). He later tries to confess his love to her and hints that he would like to have a relationship with her. However, he says it rather lamely, and the confession obviously comes too late. The third wedding is that of Carrie and Hamish at a Scottish castle. Charles attends, depressed at the prospect of Carrie's marrying Hamish. As the reception gets under way, Gareth (Simon Callow) instructs his friends to go forth and seek potential mates; Fiona's brother, Tom (James Fleet), stumbles through an attempt to connect with the minister's wife, while Charles's flat mate, Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman), strikes up a conversation with a tall, attractive American named Chester. As Charles watches Carrie and Hamish dance as husband and wife, Charles's friend Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) deduces his feelings about Carrie. When Charles asks why Fiona is not married, she confesses that she has always loved Charles since they first met years ago. Charles is surprised and empathetic but does not seek her love. At the wedding, Gareth dies suddenly of a heart attack: Gareth's partner Matthew (John Hannah, in one of his first screen roles) is in another part of the room listening to the groom's toast when Gareth dies. The funeral is that of Gareth. At the funeral, Matthew recites the poem Funeral Blues ("Stop all the clocks...") by W. H. Auden, commemorating his relationship with Gareth. After the funeral, Charles and Tom have a discussion about whether hoping to find your "one true love" is just a futile effort, and ponder that, while their clique has always viewed themselves as proud-to-be-single, Gareth and Matthew had in fact been a "married" couple among them all the while. The fourth wedding takes place ten months later, and is that of Charles, who has decided to marry Henrietta. However, moments before the ceremony, Carrie arrives at the church and reveals to Charles that she and Hamish are no longer together. Charles has a crisis of confidence, which he reveals to his deaf brother David (David Bower). At the altar, when the vicar asks if anyone knows a reason why the couple should not marry, David asks Charles to translate for him, and says in sign language that he suspects the groom is having doubts and loves someone else. The vicar asks whether Charles does love someone else, and Charles replies, "I do." Henrietta punches Charles and the wedding is abruptly halted. Finally, Carrie visits Charles, who is recovering from the debacle, to check that he is OK and apologize for attending. Charles confesses that, while standing at the altar, he realized that for the first time in his life he totally and utterly loved one person, "and it wasn't the person standing next to me in the veil." Charles makes a proposal of lifelong commitment without marriage to Carrie, saying, "Do you think not being married to me might maybe be something you could consider doing for the rest of your life?" Carrie responds by saying, "I do." The song "Going to the Chapel" is then played as we see Henrietta marry a member of the guard, Scarlett marry Chester, David marry his girlfriend, Tom marry his distant cousin Deirdre (whom he met at Charles's wedding and instantly fell for), Matthew with a new partner (Duncan Kenworthy), Fiona marry Prince Charles (a joke), and Charles and Carrie with their son -- presumably not married.

Actress Suzanne Vale leaves rehab only to be made to live with her movie star mother. Stuck together, the jaded starlet and silver screen has-been struggle to find common ground.