Movie : Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)

Genre : Romance | Drama | Comedy

Our rating : 7/10

Director : Lasse Hallstrom

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen , What ? , That would be the question raising in most of viewers mind , but yes the movie lives up to the title chosen. Though said , its a absolute romantic comedy movie which includes , emotion , sacrifice , patience and more importantly commitment. The Movie totally revolves around five important characters , First a fisheries expert Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) , visionary Sheik Muhammad   (Amr Waked) , sheik’s assistant Harriet (Emily Blunt) , the press secretary for the British prime minister Patricia Maxwell ( Kristin Scott  ) and Harriet Boyfriend Capt. Robert Mayers  ( Tom Mison ) .

As name goes , plot is very much related. A  Visionary sheik  one of billionaire in Middle east  , would like to bread Salmon in a terrain Known for its hottest climatic condition " Yemen " and turn this Middle Eastern desert to a place Suitable for Sport fishing. Though he had a personal interest to it , his main motives are to bring the people in Yemen the much required resources to flourish their generation making the desert green and to get the attention of western world.So the sheik appoints his secretary Harriet to co-ordinate with Dr. Alfred Jones who is a well known fisheries expert.Initially Dr.Alfred thinks its a joke , an unachievable Herculean task to migrate salmon which cannot survive in a place like Yemen doesn't take much interest on it and hardly cares about this project.. He doesn't take the request from the sheik seriously till the time Patrica Secretary directly involves to this project , as a opportunity to distract the public from Middle Eastern conflicts and score political points for her boss who happen to be the British prime minister.One end Dr.Alfred personal life becomes a tragedy with wife who doesn't understand him much and one who is always on travel for she is working as  a reporter . So the gap between them widens up and their relationship slowly start to tremble. Patrica finds out that there are around a million of British voters who are either fishing sport enthusiasts or working as a fisherman. Considering the importance of their votes , she pressures Fred’s boss to force Dr.Alfred participation as she knows the he could drive the project to success.. So on the other hand , due to much political significance involved , pressure starts mounting from his immediate Boss to take up this project which at this point is only theoretically possible but practically a unachievable task. . With all these on the table , Dr Alfred either has to resign his current position in fisheries department or take up the project from start till finish..

Then comes Harriet into the picture , she starts working with Dr.Alfred closely to Kick-start the project. Though Dr.Alfred did not take this project whole heartily , gives a rough estimate of 50 million dollars first and later changes it to Pounds. Harriet takes that seriously , talks to sheik and next day the amount is transferred for the project which sends shock to Alfred and the Political people involved in this project  Such a Huge money involved and people , media start talking about this project seriously and every corners of the political house start to followup the story closely. Harriet sets up a meeting with Sheik and Dr.Alfred in one of his British Estates. That is when Dr.Alfred realizes sheiks vision towards this project , his confidence to make it happen and that he is a down to earth person. Dr.Alfred gets impressed by sheiks attitude and starts working on the project immediately. The first start would involve with migration of 10000 Salmon from British sea's to Yemen , so Dr.Alfred engages his immediate boss to take care of it and in-turn his boss reach out to Patrica for help. Adding to it , Sheik had already constructed a very big Dam which could irrigate the terrain and fill the canal with much needed water for fishing.. Everything was going on as planned till the day when a Uproar arises by British fishermen to drop the project as it could deplete the Salmon population in British sea's. As the situation intensifies , Patrica requests to drop the project or to use the Salomon fish from Farms which has no experience swimming upstream and might not help much with fishing as they tend to swim away from the stream towards the direction of flow.

Sheik is not much interested with the idea to bring in the Salmon from Farm drops the plan and Patrica is much disappointed with the decision and decides to drop the project. She also request Dr.alfred to stop working on this project or to resign. Dr.Alfred , who is much connected to Sheiks vision refuses the request and resigns from his current position. Harriet boyfriend is a soldier who is currently in Afghan fighting a war. One fine day she gets a news that his boyfriend Robert gone missing in the war and he is never been found. Harriet is totally shattered and broken as she realizes that Robert is missing for long and military officials are not giving a straight answer leaving her assume he might also be one of war casualties She locks herself in her apartment, mourns for loss of his life. Seeing her condition for many days , Dr.Alfred meets her up in apartment , consoles her , gives a supporting shoulder  and suggest her to travel with him to Yemen so which could help her in recovery. . They both later travels to Yemen to start working with Sheik personally and no more government head involved in it. As time run by and the project plans are going as expected , the relationship between Alfred and Harriet brightens up and Love slowly blooms between them. Its almost many weeks with  no news about Robert so far and one of TV Channels telecast the official military spokesperson press release that there were many casualties on the recent war and many are still missing , probably dead. In meantime , sheik decides to bring in the salmon through other source and stores in a closed well before it could be released to the canal waters. While the developments are of positive note , the local militants in Yemen doesn't like the project as it could bring westerners to their place which they never like. Sheik Muhammad doesn't take it through ears and proceeds with his plan on the project provoking their anger towards him. There were a murder attempt which Sheik survives with help of Dr.Alfred. The romance between Dr and Harriet develops which is very short lived when suddenly Robert re-enters the story. Will Sheik be able to bread the salmon as he wished resisting the attempts from militants , will he do the fishing in waters of Yemen , Will Harriet will go back to Robert or stay with Dr.Alfred will be the touching climax on this beautiful movie.

Lasse was excellent with his presentation and taking a non interesting topic as a script , bringing it to live which can be fed to the audience as a pure romantic treat with good fun quotients throughout. The cast especially the sheik and Dr.Alfred were awesome and did complete justice to the role they have taken. Am sure Lasse would have been a much satisfied director with his Team performance. Scenes involving the emotion and love between hariet and Dr Alfred when Robert return was excellent and also when Albert tell Robert that he loves Harriet was cool . Screenplay was good and hardly you would feel left out. A Vision and confidence makes impossible possible is the straight message delivered and especially when Sheik say “For a fisherman, the only virtues are patience, tolerance and humility,” was awesome.

FAM Punch Line : Its not a historic movie nor a virtually stunning one , but rather a touching story bringing different characters together to attain one common goal. Can be definitely watched once for a varied script brought to life by mesmerizing performance of Lasse's cast n Crew