‘The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill ...’ (PG)

In "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain," a lighthearted and involving yarn, the overriding question is this: When does a hill actually become a mountain? The answer, according to English cartographers Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrad (Ian McNeice), is 1,000 feet. To the Welsh folk of Ffynnon Garw, where the two mappers have come to measure their mountain (or hill) in 1917, this difference becomes a matter of towering urgency. Especially when the prissy foreigners declare the elevation 15 feet too small for a mountain.

Ffynnon Garw—also the name of the mountain (or hill)—is located at the southern border with England. It has saved the Welsh Celts from the invasive might of Romans, Angles, Saxons, Norsemen and Normans for centuries. To call this grand piece of ground a hill (and deny it a place on the official government map) is an underhanded, and obviously English, insult.

The villagers, led by innkeeper Morgan the Goat (Colm Meaney) and the eccentric Reverend Jones (Kenneth Griffith), howl their protests and demand another measurement. Not only is this an affront to local pride, it's a gambling bust. Most of the villagers—before the disappointing verdict on altitude—had participated in a raffle to guess Ffynnon Garw's official height—with all of the entries above 1,000 feet.

When the humorless Garrad refuses to take a second measure, Morgan and company devise a plan to delay the mappers, while the villagers take certain steps to restore their mountain. While Morgan plies Garrad with grog, beautiful "Betty of Cardiff" (Tara Fitzgerald) beguiles Anson's bashful eye.

"The Englishman . . . ," which director Christopher Monger adapted from his own novel is, basically, an old shaggy dog's tale told by his father years ago. (Ffynnon Garw, a fictional place, is based on Monger's home town of Taff's Well; and the production was filmed in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, with the participation of the villagers.) There's an easy, unhurried air to the movie, as if the audience has been asked to pull up a pub stool, nurse a frothy ale and listen.

Meaney (who lit up "The Commitments" and "The Snapper") is his usual, provocatively comic self as a red-faced, exasperated Welshman who will stop at nothing to get his mountain back. McNeice makes an amusing, Oliver Hardy-style sourpuss. But of course, the biggest attraction is Grant, star of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," who faithfully replicates his endearing shtick from that movie, including stammering, apologizing and avoiding the gaze of women.

He's still charming, especially when he valiantly—and unsuccessfully—attempts to pronounce the name of Ffynnon Garw; or when he tells the appalled villagers that the disappointing official measurement "should, in no way, detract from the beauty of, or your affection for, the . . . hill." But this movie may mark his last chance to milk that appeal: Grant stops considerably less than 15 feet shy of being a little too cute. At my old school, over in the warlike country of England, we used to shove people like him down small slopes.

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN (PG) — Contains minor sexual situations and thick Welsh accents at times.