Best movie of this year hands down!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

So this film starts out as clearly displaying its intent to be a film noir. The intrigue hits hard, the dialog and scenes are dense with an opaque atmosphere, there's tough guy talk and demeanor all over in each scene...and then, it switches right into all-out comedy. It appears the earlier bulk of the film was merely serving as an introduction then to a sort of ode to friendship and lightheartedness... but then the film towards the end goes back to its initial intrigue which seemed lost in the mix and made unimportant. It's not clear what the film is saying, and worse yet, it's not clear what the film...is. There are good scenes to be enjoyed, sure, but - what is this film really, as a whole ? Difficult to say. It would be difficult to summarize to someone as a plot as the film delves into various totally separate units, like it's some kind of collection of sketches and fun ideas to act out. One of the last scenes with the half-deaf Delafoy father and all the shooting occurring in the house is hilarious, and the wacky sound samples used to mimic the shots in itself are a funny concept. Ventura's brutal uncompromising character is fun to watch, but all in all there's not enough in the plot for the actors to be more than comic book rubber-quality characters and for the viewer to care at all for them, making the plot irrelevant and all the attention drawn to the purely entertaining fiber of the comedy. There's no substance to it, it's all about just having fun, and nothing else. Even a comedy should have something to sensitize the viewer, and some kind of message towards the end.

I agree with all reviewers of this film, though they don't seem to agree one with the other. The thing is they're all right depending on how you focus on it. The other point is most of the reviewers, if not all of them, are French. And that is the point. You have to be French, otherwise, you'll pass over what makes this film so brilliant. In other words, what would be the point watching "gone with the wind" being deaf and blind? Still, if you are able to catch the delicious subtleness and unbelievable richness of Parisian argot (slang spoken for over 500 years makes it vintage. doesn't it ?), it is definitely a must see. Still, I gave it a 10 -1 rating. 10 because it's worth it, minus 1 because it's French.

Probably one of the most poorly directed classics of French cinema, but valued for Audiard's dialogue and the acting of the whole ensemble: you will still find French people able to quote huge chunks of the dialogue, and to remember the detail of performances by Ventura, Blier et al.In mid New Wave, with its many refinements of mise-en-scene and montage, Lautner's film is a crude mix of zooms, inapposite close-ups and ugly compositions. Lautner does not pretend to rival Chabrol or Godard, though in the last sequence he includes a New Wave type allusion to his 'Monocle' films with Paul Meurisse. Without the linguistic knowledge to appreciate the subtlety of the vulgar French, or the cinematic knowledge to appreciate the nuances in the performance of the actors, I doubt if this film is accessible to an international audience, which is as it should be. There is a part of all national film cultures that is precious because it is particular. Personally, I would find it impossible to teach this film in the French Cinema courses I run, because it is too French.

What is so special about this movie ? Its density... It lasts about two hours, and you don't have any time to breathe, because of the intelligence, and the spirit of every quote. It is a shame that there are no exemples of quotes from it on this site, it would make you laugh just to read them. Under the appearance of a classic dark detective movie, it is one of the funniest comedy ever made. The only thing is that, to keep the atmosfear, you ought to see it in original version (french). But, for Audiard and his humor, for Launtner and his inspired direction, and, most of all, for the actors (especially Bernard Blier) everybody in the whole world must see it at least once. One of the greatest french movies ever made (and God knows the quality of the french cinema) !