Broad and obvious, but often flat out funny, Claude Zidi’s corrupt cop comedy was a shoe-in at the box-office (two sequels; series spin-off), but an unlikely Best Pic winner at France’s Cesar awards. (Oscar® would never stoop so low, alas.*) Formula stuff, but from a good formula, with Phillippe Noiret simply terrific, droll personified, as a comfortably corrupt arrondissement enforcer, half beat-cop/half one-man protection operator, who gives up his partner when a scam goes bad (‘why should we both go to jail?’) only to get saddled with a straight-arrow replacement from central casting: small-town Thierry Lhermitte, young, by-the-book, incorruptible, trim, blue-eyed handsome, as smooth as Noiret is rumpled. Can this paragon be ‘bent?’ Putting the rube in harm’s way, Noiret shows Lhermitte the ropes in bribes, kickbacks, live-and-let-live laissez-faire police tactics, even when to make a move on a gangster, a horse race or a tart. Chalk & cheese in a patrol car, these natural comedians make good company as Lhermitte slowly capitulates, then starts to surpass his mentor on the dirty streets of Paris. Nice supporting characters too, at work and at play. But Zidi is deficient in letting us see just how good Noiret is at balancing his surprisingly effective work ethic behind the grifting. And the film’s overarching criminal case, needed to keep the farcical elements on a narrative track, isn’t properly setup or serviced. If only a French amalgamation of Don Siegel and Blake Edwards were around to fix the holes.
DOUBLE-BILL: *For a downbeat response, try next year’s ultra-serious/ultra-realistic approach to Paris detectives in Maurice Pialat’s POLICE/’85 with Gerard Depardieu. Very fine most of the way. The kind of film Oscar® would have gone for.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Was this even released in the States? Optioned for remake and suppressed?
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