A couple of top flight character actors — Irish mainstay Colm Meaney and American kvetcher Paul Reiser — pair up for an Irish comedy about family history, inheritance, grudges and cultures clashing in “The Problem with People.”

It’s got the sunny, soaked summery greens of Ireland, a friendly pub and colorful locals going for it. And you can’t make a credible comedy about Ireland without Meaney.

But the problem with “The Problem with People” is a script by people who don’t seem to “get” Ireland, who then cook up clunky reasons to pair these two “cousins” up and contrive clunkier concerns that drive them apart. Their research appears to have consisted of watching other movies about Americans in Ireland. Or um, Scotland.

There are grace notes — a lovely memory recited by the old man (Des Keogh) responsible for throwing these two distant relations together illustrated by charcoal sketched animation and black and white photos of a long ago rift in the family.

The American (Reiser) is convinced to go by his daughter, who reminds him his favorite film is “Local Hero.”

“That’s Scotland. Whole other country.”

“What’s the difference?”

But the charms of quaint Tinahely, County Wicklow wear thin and after an hour of charming or at least flirting with charming, the picture collapses into a contrived conflict that neither works logically nor plays comically.

Meaney is Ciáran, whose ancient “Da” (Keogh) uses his deathbed to demand “the last request of a dying man,” that his son track down an American relation and put an end to “the whole sorry story” of how their extended family became separated 100 or more years ago.

Ciáran neglects the Gorman family funeral home business, leaving Padraig (Patrick Martins) in charge as he plows through all the Gormans in the New York directory until he hits on the developer Da told him was profiled in a magazine article a while back.

Barry (Reiser) is taken aback by the call. No, it’s not a “scam.” No, they don’t “want” anything. OK, actually, they do. Barry’s about to close a big deal on a 57th St. redevelopment, but sure, he’ll fly off to rural Ireland to fulfill “a dyin’ man’s last wish.” His daughter’s (Jane Levy) “Local Hero” argument seals the deal.

Barry and Ciáran get along grand, and there’s just enough local color to charm him and us — two local lads who imitate American accents and Americanisms based on what they’ve heard from the movies, the attentive barmaid (Lucianne McEvoy) Barry takes a shine to.

And then the old man, who summoned up the strength for one last night down’tha pub, dies, but not until after sentimentally rewriting his will. He leaves half his property to the rich New Yorker.

It’s a silly conceit that might have worked had they played up how ridiculous and against-the-grain of such stories this rash act is. Instead, we’re with Ciáran, who’s in a fury over the way Americans grieve and the way Americans greed.

The picture has inane tit for tat escalations, a town dividing up to take sides and none of it making much screenwriterly sense as the whole enterprise goes plumb off the rails.

The moral of the story, that “it’s mighty easy to fall out, but the weight of carrying” a grudge “forward can be too great,” is trite and the forms the illogical feud takes — in the past and in the present — spoil the potential fun.

As we watch Reiser and the redheaded Levy (of “Evil Dead” “and TV’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”) gnosh on Manhattan Chinese food and debate Irish motivations and a family murky past, with Reiser dipping into his “This is what I’m saying” shtick, the movie hints at something wittier that might have been.

Would it have been funnier to have the American Gormans as Jewish, via marriage, conversions and what not? THAT’s a culture clash with real friction — hopefully funny — in it.

“Mad About You” alum Reiser does New York Jewish well, Irish American distantly removed, not so much. The reasons for avoiding that subject area include steering clear of stereotypes, not that Reiser and co-writer Wally Marzano-Lesnevich do a bang up job with that, either.

More local color and more colorful locals might have helped, with a better root conflict than a blase battle over real estate and a will. Otherwise, this sweet nothing loses the “sweet” and never overcomes the “nothing.”

Rating: 16+, profanity, alcohol

Cast: Colm Meaney, Paul Reiser, Jane Levy, Des Keogh and
Lucianne McEvoy

Credits: Directed by Chris Cottam, scripted by Wally Marzano-Lesnevich and Paul Reiser. A Quiver release on Amazon Prime.

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