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French actor-turned-director Michel Blanc keeps himself firmly behind the camera for his English-language debut. Instead, Daniel Auteuil is Pierre, a man whose mid-life crisis takes him from his family home in Paris to the seedy world of London's escort agencies.

Befriended by good-looking cafe manager Tom (Stuart Townsend), Pierre is roped into helping his new mate on a `job' out on the town with a couple of ladies. But all too quickly he's addicted to the easy money and joyful at the return of his sexual prowess.

The script, based on an idea by Hanif Kureishi, crams in too many characters (does everyone have to represent a separate stage on Pierre's road to ruin?) and blurs the timeline (does his decline take place over the course of several weeks or months?). And its premise (French literature professor becomes male prostitute) is just one step away from broad comedy - which surely makes The Escort the thinking man's Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.