I have to say, this comedy is extremely characteristic of recent french comedies, like "beur sur la ville", "vive la France" or "mais qui a re-tué pamela rose?" etc.
They can be utterly hilarious at times, and dead boring at others...What they lack to date is a satisfactory DENSITY of cracking gags (that's why, by the way, old comedies like "Le père noël est une ordure" still rule...With a cult gag practically every minute!).
That said, the best gags in a french comedy make me laugh one thousand times louder than everything Hollywood is able to dish out! French films hold no taboos and ridicule just about everything in life and that's super refreshing (e.g., when Kad Merad shows his boss the photo of "his sixth one", an impossibly ugly little girl...Who would dare to do that in the US?)
I have laughed like I haven't for years (even in the best sequences of the above films)in two separate sequences of this film ; yet one of both, occurring in a Vietnamese restaurant, implies reading subtitles, even if you understand french, since the dialog itself is held in Vietnamese (there were french subtitles).
just for those two hilarious gags, and of course a few other ones, I so much wanted to give this film a 7 or a 8, but it would be utter nonsense...The rest is simply too plain boring and Kad, who generally makes very good, crazy characters, is totally out of his role...But Clovis Cornillac is very good in his over-stingy, womanizing, French-Vietnamese policeman role.
I think this film is worth watching once, be it for the face of Clovis Cornillac chasing (what? You'll know watching the film), up to the surface of the swimming-pool, silently shouting "NOOOOOOO!!!" while staring at his sweetheart of the day, or trying to reduce a restaurant bill to a minimum using his Vietnamese language skills(as an aside, you'll probably understand why so many French waiters are grumpy!):)))
They can be utterly hilarious at times, and dead boring at others...What they lack to date is a satisfactory DENSITY of cracking gags (that's why, by the way, old comedies like "Le père noël est une ordure" still rule...With a cult gag practically every minute!).
That said, the best gags in a french comedy make me laugh one thousand times louder than everything Hollywood is able to dish out! French films hold no taboos and ridicule just about everything in life and that's super refreshing (e.g., when Kad Merad shows his boss the photo of "his sixth one", an impossibly ugly little girl...Who would dare to do that in the US?)
I have laughed like I haven't for years (even in the best sequences of the above films)in two separate sequences of this film ; yet one of both, occurring in a Vietnamese restaurant, implies reading subtitles, even if you understand french, since the dialog itself is held in Vietnamese (there were french subtitles).
just for those two hilarious gags, and of course a few other ones, I so much wanted to give this film a 7 or a 8, but it would be utter nonsense...The rest is simply too plain boring and Kad, who generally makes very good, crazy characters, is totally out of his role...But Clovis Cornillac is very good in his over-stingy, womanizing, French-Vietnamese policeman role.
I think this film is worth watching once, be it for the face of Clovis Cornillac chasing (what? You'll know watching the film), up to the surface of the swimming-pool, silently shouting "NOOOOOOO!!!" while staring at his sweetheart of the day, or trying to reduce a restaurant bill to a minimum using his Vietnamese language skills(as an aside, you'll probably understand why so many French waiters are grumpy!):)))