by JOANNE LATIMER

Is anyone up for two hours of schmaltzy piano music? If not, stay away from And Now Ladies and Gentlemen, the latest love story from Claude Lelouch. It's supposed to be Lelouch's triumphant return to the genre, in the tradition of his hit film A Man and a Woman. You could argue he hasn't stopped trying to remake that '66 classic. This one's a misfire - pure cheese, turning Patricia Kaas into a lounge lizard and Jeremy Irons into a jewel thief.

We all know what happens when misty-eyed lounge lizards meet suave jewel thieves: they fall in love while running from the law, stranded in exotic locations. This film is all travelogue, in soft focus. We go from the bejewelled Bulgari store in Paris to Fez in Morocco to the open seas to the French seaport town of Fécamp and finally back to the deserts of Morocco. If Patricia Kaas is ever in need of a perfume ad, this would do nicely. She could randomly slice out any 30 seconds of the film to conjure the aroma of sentimental melancholy.

Add to that aroma of sentimentality a splash of wistful longing. Kaas plays a broken-hearted singer who gets the blues so bad she comes down with amnesia. Yes, amnesia. Guess what malady our jewel thief is battling, while sailing solo around the world? Yes, amnesia. Lelouch wants us to suspect Irons is a faker, but it's impossible to care. Irons is, well, not jewel thief material. He's supposed to be a master of disguise, too, which is as embarrassing as it sounds. (He's instantly recognizable as an educated, middle-aged British actor.) Despite Lelouch's attempts to showcase the stealthy and cunning side of his male lead, Irons was never any competition for Brosnan as Bond.

In my books, audiences can be warned of certain plot twists - the kind of twists that make people wish they'd stayed home and watched television. One example is amnesia, which you already know. The next one is even more ludicrous: brain tumour. Consider yourself warned.

And Now Ladies and Gentlemen opens Friday, Aug. 8

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