moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (06/21/85)
LA CHEVRE (France, 1982)
Director/ Screenwriter: Francis Veber
Cast: Pierre Richard, Gerard Depardieu, Corynne Charbit, Michel
Robin, Andre Valardy
This festival has done little to further my opinion of French
Comedy. I previously reviewed _My_New_Partner_ as just to
immoral to be funny -- the viewer is asked to laugh at a policeman
who frames, steals, and is up to his waist in graft. This film shows
the other major flaw of French comedy. The film preceded a very
popular comedy that came out last year called "Les Compres". It's
big claim to fame was it combined two of Frances biggest stars:
Pierre Richard (All the _Tall_Blond_Man_ movies, _The_Toy_), and
Gerard Depardieu (_Return_of_Martin_Guerre_, _The_Last_Metro_).
The story in this film deals with an industrialist's daughter who is
kidnapped in Mexico. The industrialist hires Depardieu, a P.I., to
find her, but after six weeks he has no luck. However, a
psychologist working for the industrialist has a rather bizarre idea:
the daughter is known to have a terrible case of "bad luck" (exactly
the type that Inspector Closeau had in all the Pink Panther
Movies). An accountant in the industrialist's firm has the same
problem (Richard, of course), and the psychologist believes that if
Richard accompanies Depardieu back to Mexico, his bad luck will
lead them to the girl's location. From there, the rest of the film
follows the trials and misfortunes of the pair as they seek out the
daughter.
Let me first say that there ate some very good things about this
film. I thought the idea of taking the Inspector Closeau idea and
turning it inside-out and examining it a very neat idea indeed; and
it works when that is what is being described. And the ending to
the film, where the screenwriter's imagination flared somewhat, is
fun, because the "misfortunes" Richard suffers through are
extremely unexpected, and you laugh in surprise. Also, a very nice
final scene. BUT... one should not have to put up with an hour of
Jerry Lewis re-runs to get to this points. I know France is
supposed to idolize Lewis, but this film seems to be trying to
rework the old Lewis/Dean Martin style. And while I think that
Richard is a funnier actor than Lewis, the barrage of bad luck jokes
during the first hour are really poor. You can see exactly what
misfortune is going to befall Richard, and then you watch it
happen. There is no surprise, just a rather mechanical "Whoops!"
feeling. I haven't seen the film that followed this (by almost
completely the same crew), but if it is anything like this film,
I will avoid it.
"You can't go in there!"
"Yes I can. This is America. I can go anywhere I want to."
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
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