Tango

A light hearted not so black comedy taking place in french riviera during.summer that cloyds us with.sexual mickness and.acting liberty that finally serves as our own memory. Philip Noiret chic as usual and Thierry Lhermitte as the romantic buffoun form a peculiar duo of accidental drifters loosing their quest cause in an Odyssey of comic-sentimental twists. Patrice Leconte did a lot of this genre at the time, playing with chemiistry and improvisation, falling for a chip aesthetism in order to amuse. Nevertheless, the female characters counterbalance whatever seems to be off purpose and reduntant.

... 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.

Although not on the same level as other Leconte efforts, (Monsieur Hire, Le mari de la coiffeuse , La veuve de Saint-Pierre , Confidences trop intimes, Mon meilleur ami, L'homme du train, Ridicule, Le parfum d'Yvonne) it's still a fun noir comedy.

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.

This adorable road move through France is seemingly deeply misogynistic. Except for that it is the exact opposite. Rather, it puts all sorts of masculine hipocracy and some of the very real fears propelling indulgent male behaviour front and center and make sport with them. The film is romantic and possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. If you can take an off colour joke...