At least half an hour of this feeble if moderately starry rom-com from Paul Weiland takes place in the Highlands of Scotland — or an American version of it. The scenery is nice but, as one born thereabouts, I soon wanted to throw things at the screen. Every cliché in the book is faithfully encompassed, with haggis, kilts, caber tossing and bagpipes well to the fore and the Scots themselves made to look like comic idiots.

For Americans, of course, such silliness — right down to the wrong pronunciation of the name Atholl so that it sounds like a rude word — may confirm all sorts of ignorant prejudices. But the rest of us will find the proceedings close to parody.

Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) goes to Scotland on a business trip leaving behind Tom (Patrick Dempsey) with whom she is conducting a non-sexual relationship while he carries on with various other females.

But when she surprises him by becoming engaged to the wealthy Colin (Kevin McKidd) who lives in a castle and calls basketball a girls’ game, Tom suddenly realises he’s been in love all along.

She wants him to be her “maid of honour” (despite the fact that he’s a man), but he sets off for Scotland intent on preventing the wedding.

A wedding feast is prepared at the castle where Colin’s mother says that everything at the table has been killed by her handsome son (how do you kill a haggis?) and it is soon apparent that the girl might just have second thoughts. Meanwhile, Tom dons the shortest of kilts and tosses the caber straight into an Atholl car.

The problem with the film is that you don’t believe a word of it from beginning to end. There is no relationship that looks remotely real, except that between Tom and the posse of dogs he meets now and then. The canines seem a good deal more human than the humans, which, of course, is often the case.

Kathleen Quinlan and Sydney Pollack, good actors both, do their best in smaller parts. But the principals, bravely as they play, can’t jump the hurdle of a desperately daft plot which introduces Tom with a Clinton mask, sniffing a large cigar provocatively and searching for an intern at a fancy dress party.