Opens Fri Aug 29 at Seven Gables.

During the FIrst 60 minutes of this two-hour film, one is under the impression that if it cut the last mooring holding it down, it would float up and out into new territory. The film's conditions are favorable: There is a charming jewel thief (Jeremy Irons playing, as he always does so well, himself--a decayed and world-weary gentleman), the somber city of Paris (again, playing itself--decayed and world-weary), and a beautiful jazz singer (Patricia Kaas) who is competing with another beautiful jazz singer for the love of a gorgeous trumpeter. But And Now Ladies & Gentlemen, which is directed by Claude Lelouch, just doesn't go far enough. It only reaches the brink of brilliance before giving up and descending into the ridiculous.

The movie begins by vacillating, at a dreamy pace, between the robberies of upscale London/Paris jewelers and songs performed by the Parisian jazz singers. The songs are sad; the robberies are funny. The songs are about lost love; the robberies involve lots of money. And there seems no connection until the second half of the movie, when the director links the parts and resolves what clearly needs no resolution at all, but simply to persist as it was: a charmingly rudderless story.

Things fall apart when two new and big elements give sudden direction to the initial, drifting scenario. One, it is revealed that the jazz singer and jewel thief suffer from some kind of brain disorder; two, the country of Morocco becomes the setting where the jazz singer and jewel thief chance to meet. Their common affliction leads to a romance in the desert; the romance is spiced by a little mystery; and the investigation of this mystery fills the rest of the film with boredom.