1 chance sur 2

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.

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.

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.

Ok... so Une Chance Sur Deux is not the greatest movie ever

made! I'll give you that. It's not even Belmondo's or Delon's

best film. But it is a very, very entertaining piece of film! If

you are a fan of both this actors (like I am) you'll just love

seeing them together in action in this film. And the production

values sure help. All in all, you'll have a great two hours of

fun. Highly recommended.

First, the bad news: Vanessa Paradis has announced her intention of returning to the screen. The good news is even she can't ruin this divertissement. Patrice Leconte doesn't like to repeat himself and he clearly decided it was time he climbed aboard the 'Our Man Flint/Matt Helm' bandwagon and laid a spoof thriller on us. The movie is referential to the nth degree because audiences are supposed to have seen or at least be very much aware that Delon and Belmondo enjoyed a mega smash some thirty years ago with 'Borsalino' in which they played Marseilles-based hoods. Those who know and dug the original will feel a frisson when the Borsalino 'theme' strikes up, those who don't won't care either way. The plot, such as it is, hinges on the Paradis character and Oh, how much better it would have been without this Goldie Hawn look-alike and play alike - all big round saucer eyes and the galloping cutes which is calculated to make cases of male arrested development roll over and play dead. Here she plays a car thief just out of the slammer after her dear old mom has gone to the big jump lead in the sky but not before leaving a cassette tapping either Delon or Belmondo as the biological father of Paradis. So, off she goes to find them, via a boosted car which just happens to belong to the Russian mafia who are not best pleased. She locates both Delon and Belmondo who are more or less forced to team up and take on the mafia - that's right, two over-the-hill hard men against god-knows-how-many nasty men. It's not all blowing up casinos and throwing heavies off cliffs cos in between we get lotsa laffs - think Duke Wayne and Bob Mitchum in 'El Dorado' and you're getting there. This is French so even the mayhem is done stylishly. Go see, enjoy. 8/10