“Gosford Park” tells the story about a posh gathering in the English countryside during the early 1930s. Everything seems to be going well until the host of the weekend ends up dead. Everyone, from his wife to his valet, is a suspect.

There is so much buzz surrounding this movie that it might be mistaken for a beehive. With all that buzz you would expect it to be some great work of cinematic art.

“Gosford Park” falls short of all expectations. The first three-quarters of the film drag on with boring dialogue and little to no action. You can only watch wealthy English and American elite sit on their butts in various surroundings for so long before you become comatose. The “murder,” which comes across as the main plot point in the ads for this movie, does not even happen until the last quarter of the film.

There are also so many characters that you feel like you need a scorecard to keep track of who is who, who is doing who, and which servant works for which upper crust snot.

If the super-sized cast does not confuse you enough, the last quarter of the film will drive you mad. There are more twists in the plot than in a bag of pretzels. All of these secrets and revelations come at the audience so fast and so furiously that everything becomes one big blur.

This film is billed as a charming little comedy. Too bad there is nothing funny about it. The bumbling detective brought in to solve the murder is supposed to be a form of comic relief. However, that relief is not very effective, and it is too little too late. There are some subtle jokes, like hot tea spilled on a lap, but it is just not enough to cut through the boredom.

There are, however, a few redeeming performances to be found. Kristen Scott-Thomas plays the cold-hearted emotionless wife to the letter. Kelly MacDonald (who played Diane in “Trainspotting”) plays the innocent, doe-eyed new servant on the block with near perfection.

However, two strong performances are not enough to save an entire film.

In all, “Gosford Park” has more faults than anything else. It lacks any of the qualities of an award winning, if even memorable, film. The plot is pretty much nonexistent until the end. Too many characters make for too much confusion, especially when the servants are addressed by the names of the person that they serve. Ensemble casts can be effective, but bigger is not always better.

After reading the countless glowing reviews, this feels like an attack on a sacred cow but no amount of buzz can disguise a bad film.

Grade: D