Le gendarme en balade

This is an extremely uneven entry from the Gendarmes series, featuring Michel Galabru at a definitive peak (for the series) but De Funès alternating between brilliance and actual boredom (like what his character goes through at first in the film). Maybe this weariness my wife and I detected in his performance here was a foreboding of some of his health issues which will, a few years later, make him stop shooting physical comedy altogether, and will finally take his life so prematurely.

His faithful partner Claude Gensac wrote in her autobiography that De Funès' humour was a logical one. His characters were behaving logically even in their over-the-top reactions. But here when he goes nuts over being pampered and looked after all the time by his rich wife's staff, he insists upon dirtying the car on purpose in order to have a chance to wash it by himself and thus splashes paint all over it… only to empty in the process another bucket of paint on top of his own head… You would never have seen a gag like this in a classic Gendarmes such as "Le gendarme de St. Tropez" or "Le gendarme se marie", because it does not make sense! That the priest enters into a grimace contest with De Funès in plain view before his wife – however funny some of those face exchanges can be – doesn't make any sense either and is gratuitous! There is also mediocre acting on the part, for instance, of the butler, which doesn't help some of those poorly written, ill-warranted or directed scenes…

But when the Gendarmes don their uniforms under the orders of the hilariously perfect (i.e. constantly serious, grave and solemn) adjutant Gerber, we are OK gain, and the situations can get really funny, like the talking whistle bit which another reviewer has described so well!

Now that Cruchot is married with Josepha,now that he is rich ,now that he has got nothing to do but rest in his missus's desirable mansion,what is left for him to do? Retirement is not his cup of tea and he feels nostalgic for the good old time when he was a gendarme and he had fun with his colleagues and his superior Gerber (Michel Galabru).

He finds back his old pals,and they come back to work,in an unofficial capacity.Their good humor will come back again too.

Of course Sister Marie-Benedicte (and mother superior)character is featured ,but Cruchot's daughter ,Nicole ,is absent for the first time in the series.She will never appear afterward.

The cops are at it again. I guess retirement does not exist in France - just kidding of course. This is only true for movie cops, especially the ones that are in a movie series! And have Luis de Funes as a star! The fun thing is that kind of everyone is back from previous entries - nun is missing! No wait, she's not.

Having said all that the jokes are fine enough and you get your Funes mojo going. Not as straightforward and driven as the previous entry, but still fun and entertaining enough

...and it could not be less. because it has the right actors and locations and a brilliant script. because the irony about stereotypes remains fresh and crazy and seductive. and because it has the perfect couple - de Funes - Galabru, and, more than others parts of series, the small, delicate feeling of the return to a world who remains significant part of life/identity. a lot of adventures and gags. not different but the first three parts. but nice and crazy and touching. because they are the virtues of the brave troops .

In the serie of gendarme-pictures is this one of the funniest. Cruchot and his men are on a tour down memory lane. They are playing with their young successors. Hilarious are the scenes when they visit a hippy community. This is some fine piece of facial improvisation. The cast is as always superb! This is how comedy should be. Really overdone but with typical style and some fine performances by two of the funniest French actors ever. Funes and Galabru makes this one incroyable! 4,5 out of 5.