What goes up must come down, including Englishmen who climb hills. Unfortunately, this film does little more than teach this basic physics lesson, according to many critics, because its writer-director, Christopher Monger, failed to give it enough plot pitch. Hugh Grant, injects his usual hem-hawing diffidence and nice-guy smiles, but they tend to wear thin after a while. Nevertheless, Grant fans may like this film because it does have romance and it does have amusing moments. Set in Wales during World War I, The Englishman centers on a village with a landmark that townspeople thought was a mountain until spoilsport mapmakers Reginald Anson (Grant) and George Garrad (Ian McNeice) show up one day and discover its hypotenuse. The mountain, it seems, is only a hill. As the proud villagers roll out the wheelbarrows to raise the hill to new heights of glory, (and so earn the town and its landmark a spot on maps), the viewer settles back to watch some serious earth-moving. Meanwhile, comely Betty of Cardiff (Tara Fitzgerald) keeps Reginald hem-hawing long enough to stay in town. Haul dirt, hem-haw. Haul dirt, hem-haw. Haul dirt, hem-haw. That is the sum and substance of the film. Colm Meaney turns in a good performance as a barkeep who opens a beer stand to serve the hill-raisers, and the hill itself, called Ffynnon Garw, is perfect as a would-be mountain.