Le gendarme en balade

...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 .

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!

The entire San Trope's gendarmerie is sent in an early retirement, to replace them with younger, stronger and more modern gendarmes. But Cruchot and his friends hardly endure the boredom of pensioner's life and soon get into a series of hilarious troubles. This fourth movie doesn't bring anything especially new into the franchise, but there are no bigger flaws either. A light comedy adventure for resting the brain.

6/10

and one of De Funes' funniest ever. The fourth movie in the Gendarme series, this story finds the boys in forced retirement from the cushy police job at St. Tropez because they've become too old. When the Adjutant (Galabru) comes to visit De Funes to reminisce about old times, they discover that one of their old group (Fougasse) has had a head injury, has amnesia and is in an institution. They decide to get the old gang back and save him. But to save him, they decide to kidnap him and don their old Gendarme uniforms so they can bring back his memory of who he is. That's where the fun starts, because soon they are pursued by real Gendarmes for impersonating false Gendarmes. It's silly fun but very funny, thanks to brilliant performances by De Funes and Galabru.

Throughout the film, there are too many funny moments with De Funes to mention. In the early scenes, I died laughing when De Funes, now a rich man for having married into wealth, punches out his maid repeatedly in the face. De Funes' outlandish comedic rages have often been compared to the manic temper of Donald Duck. In another scene, De Funes is at his absolute best when mumbling incredible gibberish when he and his false Gendarmes get stoned on marijuana in a hippie commune, where they are forced to hide from the real Gendarmes pursuing them. But one of the very best scenes of De Funes in any movie is when the false Gendarmes arrive upon a traffic accident and can't help themselves; they must don their old uniforms and become cops again if only for a few moments. In this scene, De Funes uses a police whistle to clear the accident from the road and, from the sounds he makes, you can actually understand what words in cop language his cadence implies. It's unforgettable. The man was a genius and there will never be another.

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.