Uno de dos

Both were icons of French action flicks in the 60' and 70'. Both played together once in 1970. Now don't be fooled. This isn't reality. This is an imaginary and unlikely story where actors and viewers are accomplices. Just as in any Bond flick, weapons are big and heroes get-off easy where most mortals would kick the bucket. This time, heroes are gray just as we all are getting. Imagine Sean Connery coming out of retirement and teaming with Charles Bronson for a field day. That's what we get here.

Chances are we'll get a Hollywood remake any day now.

The long-awaited (since "Borsalino" in 1970, I think) reunion of two of the greatest and most popular French film stars ever, Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo, is a slick but disappointing action comedy. It is mildly amusing when it focuses on these two and their relationship with the daughter they never knew they had, but the secondary crime plot makes very little sense for at least the first 40 minutes, and the villainous Russian mobsters look and (over)act like refugees from a straight-to-video Steven Seagal movie. Delon and Belmondo are still fun to watch, and they have to be commended for still pulling off some hard and risky stunts at their age; as for Vanessa Paradis, she is fresh and sexy. But if you're looking for this type of "Americanized" French cinematic entertainment, the "Taxi" series (especially Part 2) does it better. ** out of 4.

In his book "I am an impostor", Patrice Leconte wrote that "une Chance Sur Deux" drew more than a million viewers in French theaters when the film was theatrically released. It was however a failure because this film was expensive to make due to its stars: Vanessa Paradis, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon, the restless story and its treatment. Critics were hardly tender towards the Leconte 1998 vintage and view the three stars' incredible adventures in an unfavorable light. With hindsight, "une Chance Sur Deux" is sandwiched between two Leconte masterworks: "Ridicule" (1996) and "la Fille Sur la Pont" (1999) and didn't seem to be in the hearts of many Leconte aficionados.

However, I'm eager to restore it to favor. Sure, it doesn't match the two aforementioned Leconte works as well as other pearls in his filmography but it has more than good stuff to spend a pleasant time in front of your telly. The starting point could make you guess you're going to watch a reflective piece of work. A young girl Alice is released from prison and is confronted to a serious problem: two men who are retired gangsters claim to be her father. They will have to team up to save their daughter from the clutches of the Russian Maffia, Colombian traffickers and the police.

Quite quickly, after having timidly broached the issue of paternity on a humorous tone, Leconte's film takes a lighter direction: to entertain thanks to an unlikely but exciting scenario with stunts, chases interspersed with laughter. I especially dig the moment when Belmondo and Delon oblige a gangster to practice bungee-jumping to help them in their investigation. And amid this flood of unexpected twists and mad adventures shot with a style close from the comic strip, Leconte didn't lose his trademark with witty cues and one of his thematic tastes: the duo of men even if in this domain "une Chance Sur Deux" is much less elaborated than other Leconte films on the same topic like "Tandem" (1987) or "l'Homme Du Train" (2002). One also shouldn't forget some eccentric characters like the cop acted by Michel Aumont.

The three stars don't take themselves seriously and it's the position adopted by Leconte to better involve the audience. So, don't be fooled by the lukewarm reception the film garnered about ten years ago and let yourself immersed in this maelstrom of agitation shot with rigor and a conscientious manner.

I would like Delon and Belmondo had come together for the second time at least ten years earlier. Then the action scenes would be not only more credible but more creative, too.

The story of the film is basically creative, but the action scenes take more than enough time while the real asset of the story (and of the film, too) was not the action but the relation of the three major characters. I would like to see much more scenes about the relations of the extraordinary characters and smart dialogs among them, that is, I would rather to enjoy the magnetism of the acting and personalities of the extraordinary triangle of Delon/Belmondo/Paradis than to watch the ordinary explosions, ordinary mafia guys, ordinary car chases, ordinary flying bullets and the other similarly ordinary trifles.

Delon and Belmondo must come together for a third time, and this time without waiting for ten years more. Yes it may be already late. But now is better than later or never.

You look at the birthdates and you shake your head. Belmondo at 65, Delon at 62--who can take them seriously as action heroes? Even Sean Connery had the sense to retire as Bond before he got too many grey hairs.

Oh, there are some nice effects--good to see French producers shelling out for explosions and so forth, but this is a poor effort. Only thing to admire is Vanessa Paradis: her toothy grin and enthusiasm are growing on me, but see her in the far-better La Fille sur le pont.