Thanks for the memories!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It will certainly surprise Patrice Leconte's devotees if I tell them that Mick Jagger, the front man of the Rolling Stones is a professed fan of this French author. So, Sir Mick Jagger, if you haven't seen this one "Tango", I can recommend it to you (and of course to the aficionados of its creator) with, however a little reserve. Coming after a chain of pearls such as "Tandem" (1987), "Monsieur Hire" (1989) or "le Mari De la Coiffeuse" (1990), "Tango" is a little below them as regards quality.Because he knows that his wife deceives him with her lover, Vincent (Richard Borhinger) kills both of them but against all odds he's acquitted by a misogynous judge rightly nicknamed "l'élégant" (the smart man) (Philippe Noiret). In return, he persuades him (blackmails him would be closer to the truth) to join him with his nephew Paul (Thierry Lhermitte) to go and kill the latter's wife in North Africa. And our threesome embarks on a trip across France, then catches a plane to arrive on their destination. As soon as the three men are together, the film has the accents of a road-movie like "Tandem" a previous Leconte effort and the best in all his filmography. A road-movie shot in a hectic pace and peppered with preposterous meetings and events.When the film opened in French theaters in February 1993, Patrice Leconte was wrongly accused of misogyny. Its detractors couldn't understand the whole film. Men can't live without women. Just have a look at Vincent: after he killed his wife and after having been acquitted, he seems gloomy. And as for Paul, although he can't stand the idea that his wife is still alive and may live her life with another man, he's undecided about the acting. Even the judge doesn't seem to really hate women. After the sequence when Judith Godrèche killed her husband, he doesn't arrest her and even authorizes Vincent to have a baby with her behind the bushes in the country! Anyway, feminist characters are overall positive so "Tango": a misogynous film? Definitely not...Earlier in my review, I wrote in my review that "Tango" wasn't at the same level than the other Leconte films I mentioned. Very simply because when our threesome philosophize about the relationships between men and women and why they can't live together, the film becomes draggy and talky. The filmmaker tapped this function on the staple story to beef his film up but when it comes at the foreground, the machine turns without gripping and the interest somewhat wanes. These drawbacks stop the film from taking its place among Leconte's very winners.But apart from these somewhat intellectual pretensions, "Tango" shouldn't be dismissed all the same. In this entertaining black comedy, the Leconte touch runs throughout the film and should make the fans flock to it. This filmmaker has nearly always the gift to collaborate with peerless scenarists who scatter his films with potent cues. Then, "Tango" shelters strong sequences like the very first one during the opening credits. As a matter of fact, the first twenty minutes during which Leconte indulges himself with two spoofs of "North by Northwest (1959) by Hitchcock could justify the screening of the film. Another strong moment is the one when Noiret acquits Vincent: one can hear his voice but one can't see him. And still from Leconte this taste for the oddball, absurd detail. You have to see Noiret talking to his cat like to a human being or Borhinger fishing with a fishing rod without a line."Tango" isn't a new pinnacle in Leconte's career for the reason I previously mentioned but it shouldn't be rejected. Helped by its assets and a three-star cast, Leconte's fans should reassure themselves: they are in well-known lands. For me, Leconte will reach new heights again with his next film, the summery, nearly dreamlike "le Parfum d'Yvonne" (1994) which should have known a better commercial fate than its commercial fiasco.

... and I'm sorry I did, because this is one of Leconte's weakest efforts. After Ridicule, The Hairdresser's Husband, Monsieur Hire, Intimate Strangers, you expect only the best from Leconte: here though, with a script that plays like it came out of the bottom drawer, you get only a very lame comedy that the three male leads walk through.I will say that the cameo by Carole Bouquet is nicely set up and provides the only witty moments. She's daring where Lhermitte is timid, wish there had been a lot more like it. Miou-Miou, whose work I have admired in the past, is here stuck with a poor part as Lhermitte's wife. Michele Laroque is voluptuous and vacuous as Bohringer's wife.

Fast paced and compelling watching, this movie simply hits the deck running, grabs your attention with both hands, and never stops. The dialogue comes quick and to the point, and for those who don't know French (me, unfortunately, being one), make sure you can read the subtitles just as fast as you can! There is subtle, cynical, tongue-in-cheek humor throughout. The viewpoint is decidedly that of the jaded, matrimony-weary male, but (possible SPOILER) don't let that deter you from seeing this movie, because the happy ending truly has a heart of gold. You will be glad you stayed with it until the end.The flight scenes are quite well filmed and fun to watch, and if you like airplanes, you will LOVE the action. (One of the biplanes in the movie reminded me of that beautiful yellow biplane in The English Patient – the one in which Colin Firth's character crashes).The road trip portion of the film wasn't bad either. They get into a variety of amusing scrapes, plus, it was hilarious to see them cruising around France in a big American station wagon which, now that I think of it, vaguely reminds me of that big station wagon in National Lampoon's Vacation.Great movie, definitely a "guy" film (even for those male viewers who don't think they could handle one of those darned foreign films – a French one no less!). However, the aforementioned ending will no doubt endear this film to the female viewer as well. I give it beau coup stars.

A stunt pilot named Vincent, played by Richard Bohringer (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) finds out his wife is cheating on him while he flies his plane. He forces her lover's car off the road and kills him; then takes his wife up in the plane and loses her. He is acquitted in court by a judge, Philippe Noiret (La Grande Bouffe). Later, while Vincent is fishing with a rod with no line, he is approached by the judge and his nephew Paul, Thierry Lhermitte (Le Diner de Cons) and asked to kill Paul's wife, or do twenty years in prison, the judge tells him. He reluctantly agrees, and the trio go in search of her together. Most of the talk is about women, and man's inevitable urge for them. There's some good scenes; one where a truck driver smashes up their car being one. The cast and acting is good; there's also a cameo by Jean Rochefort (The Phantom of Liberty) as a bellboy. It's an entertaining ride.