Les tontons flingueurs

It was one of the greatest french comedies.

Dialogs were from Michel AUDIARD, but you must listen them in French.

It's theses dialogs which have made the notoriety of this movie. Five great actors are these "Monsieur GANGSTER" (Lino Ventura, Francis Blanche, Robert Dalban, Bernard Blier and Jean Lefebvre).

The greatest scene is when these five gangsters are drinking alcohol in the kitchen.

It's one of the funniest movies I've seen. If you don't speak french, it's more difficult to understand dialogs because translation is often different that original language.

Forty year later, I love always this film "cult".

Excuse me for my poor English.

For a number of years now they have fed us movies about the adventures of mutant superheroes (o.k., I admit I have seen and enjoyed one or two of them). This was preceded by the surreal Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Van Damme-decade (also called the eighties), with action-flick actors whose muscle mass far exceeded their acting skills. Before that, there was Dirty Harry and a wild selection of anti-heroes of all sizes, shapes and colors. But when, exactly, was it, that real men disappeared from the screen? The event that caused the extinction of such dinosaurs as Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin, Lee Marvin, Humphrey Bogart and the like must have been the counter-culture of the sixties. But what a loss it caused. We had movie-stars who were real, gentlemanly (sometimes), cool, human and funny as well as ugly but sexy and we went and replaced them with a bunch of guys in a mask and cape (and I don't mean Zorro).

Luckily we all have our VCRs and DVD players and blockbuster and amazon and are able to enjoy movies like Les Tontons Flinguers, one of the funniest, coolest and yet silliest movies of all time. Every actor a character, every dialogue a gem, every scene a revelation about how to make it look easy. Go see this film before you even contemplate to watch Spiderman III!

Former taxi driver, sports journalist and all-round 'character' Albert Simonin, wrote his Max le Menteur trilogy in the mid-1950's. All three were filmed but the vagaries of film-making and different directors combined to make each film a separate entity. The only connecting thread between the trio is the splendid dialogue of Michel Audiard. By far the best is of course 'Touchez-pas au Grisbi' featuring Jean Gabin as Max. He turns up again in 'Le Cave se rebiffe' seven years later as a counterfieter named Ferdinand. Two years on we have 'Les Tontons Flingueurs' in which the character has morphed into Fernand and is played by the only actor capable at the time of filling Gabin's shoes, namely Lino Ventura. 'Grisbi' is pure Film Noir whilst 'Le Cave' is a gentle comedy. 'Flingueurs' is made in the same spirit as 'Le Cave' but is anything but gentle! The title literally translates as 'Gun-toting Uncles' which is not exactly 'catchy' but far stronger than the insipid alternative 'Crooks in Clover' which is more appropriate to something made by Ealing Studios. In terms of the mise-en-scene by Georges Lautner the latter is probably the weakest of the three but the characters, the 'slang' and some hilariously comic scenes have made this a cult film in France. To call the characters 'colourful' would hardly do them justice. Fernand's 'business associates' are all simply frightful and utterly devoid of redeeming features but are portrayed as a bunch of clowns and losers, especially the Paul Volfoni of Bernard Blier who suffers from delusions of adequacy. Even the teenage daughter and her composer boyfriend are terminally irritating. The best scene and ironically the one that Audiard liked the least, is where the gangsters bond and try to hold an intelligible conversation whilst imbibing a disgusting alcoholic brew described as 'a mans drink'. Another highlight is the bullet-dodging scene involving Fernand and the half-deaf president of the International Monetary Fund! Blier is as always good value and Ventura's strong presence holds the film together. They both prove that Comedy is most effective when played straight. Liberties have been taken with the original and the mix of Noir/Gangster/Comedy genres is not to everyones taste but the sheer entertainment value of this bizarre, surreal film is undeniable.

It seems like everyone makes a big deal about having to speak french, understand older french slang, etc. in order to enjoy this movie. I know about ten words of French, and still found this movie hilarious.

To assert that the dialogue is the central virtue of the film does the actors a HUGE disservice, in addition to limiting comedy to merely spoken jokes and gags. Lino Ventura is a great comedic presence, which may strike many as odd, taking into account his more well-known "serious" roles in films like Francesco Rosi's "Cadaveri eccellenti," and Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows." He is a very underrated, and often over-looked actor who could play comedy just as well as he could play seldom-speaking leaders of the French resistance.

Although I could understand a knowledge of French culture and language enhancing some of the nuances of the dialogue, do not be swayed away from this great film by the words of others declaring it is "too French." It is a classic comedy that transcends language barriers, and certainly serves as a great light-hearted companion piece to the many distinctive French gangster films of the era. Perhaps even surpassing many of them in sheer entertainment value.

After the Killer Tomatoes we now have the Killer Uncles (a more or less literal translation of an untranslatable movie). The level of word-play may be guessed at even by non-French speakers when the credits announce it is based on the novel 'To grisbi or not grisbi', which is, in itself, a nod to another novel and classic French movie 'Touchez-pas aux grisbi', with 'grisbi' in both cases being underworld slang for 'loot' in the sense of 'hot' money. Although it has all the trappings of a 'gangster' entry this is actually a comedy of bad manners involving two factions led respectively by Lino Ventura and Bernard Blier. While ex-wrestler Ventura has no problem acting tough Blier, arguably the best actor in the piece by light years and equally at home across the acting spectrum, plays it for laffs so that what we wind up with is a melange. Another French classic. 8/10