Envoyés très spéciaux

Envoyés très spéciaux ("Very Special Correspondents") is a solid, but also somewhat predictable comedy about two French radio reporters -- namely, suave journalist Frank and his impish tech-guy Albert. When they mess up their big assignment to report from Iraq, they pretend to report from the war zone although they're actually hiding out in gay Paree until the whole thing blows over. Next they have to pretend they've been hijacked while the entire country rallies to the support of their hero reporters -- forcing them to leave their comfortable hideout and actually go to "the real deep sh*t" in Mesopotamia -- where they are promptly hijacked for real. So it's probably not the best time for Frank to tell his buddy a pretty sticky secret ...

On the upside, the movie offers great acting and cinematography, and a very professional production, but its downsides are the uninspired script and the middle-of-the-road direction. This wasn't a movie I couldn't have afford to have missed. In particular, it misses out an a great chance for a long-overdue scathing satire of the global news business.

Like in the old Soviet Union everybody has a quota. The government a quota of funds to spend for whatever Culture might mean to the minister of the day. The actors have a quota before receiving a governmental pension and some governmental consolation prizes because nobody outside France has heard of them (except Omar Sy). The Union has an employment quota. Even the script writers have a quota: between this and that number of words in total.

Special Correspondents follows in the successful tradition of French farces, many of which have been adapted by Hollywood. This time we have a radio reporter who, together with a bumbling technician, are given a mission to go to Iraq to cover the ongoing conflict. However they manage to lose the air tickets & the expenses money and, faced with the prospect of ridicule & shame, they decide to hide in Paris & send reports from an "Iraq" created in a friend's house. This leads to many hilarious complications and situations. Special Correspondents uses a clever idea quite successfully, milking a generous quantity of laugh out loud moments from it. Performances are fine and surely it won't be long before a US remake appears.