"Sweet Talker" is obviously a labor of love for Brown. He co-wrote the storyline and has a great time on the screen as an amiable con man who attempts to take the residents of a small seaside village for all their worth.

But he's surprised at the reaction of the locals when he presents his scheme. He claims to know where a famous galleon is that supposedly sank off the village coast, and he makes the local residents investors in a plot to dig it up and create a tourist attraction. They throw their money at him.

But when he meets innkeeper Karen Allen and her young, fatherless son (Justin Rosniak), Brown, naturally, begins to have second thoughts about his so-called profession.

The film wants to be a kind of giddy comedy that is rare these days — but actually Brown and his cast are more giddy than the film itself.

The players are all very good and Brown and Allen have chemistry together, but the film is so broad, yet so low-key and meandering, that it never quite builds up a real head of steam. Worse, it simply isn't funny enough to sustain interest. (And, as is often the case these days, a bevy of wonderful supporting players are introduced but never given enough to do.)

There are times when this old-fashioned, sentimental comedy resembles those little pictures by Scotsman Bill Forsyth, most obviously "Local Hero," or perhaps the old British caper comedies of Alec Guinness. But those films knew enough to keep the laughs coming, however low-key they might be, whereas "Sweet Talker" has too many plodding sequences.

"Sweet Talker" is rated a mild PG for some mild violence, a couple of profanities and vulgar references, and implied sex.