Funny comedy which spares nobody from the car rallies to the military to the astronomers to the movie-makers ; only the nature and people living in the Alpes de Haute Provence escape unharmed .
It takes place in the first five days of the Gulf War which may seem irrelevant but which inspires a sergeant's psychosis. In the splendid landscapes ,intruders are not the wecome (scene of the telephone) ; Bouchitey is marvelous as a macho rally driver who makes his female team mate slave away while lazily sitting in his precious car ; a sergeant is convinced that in these mountains ,Saddam Hussein hides secret forces (hence the hints at the Gulf War); it's a real psychosis which leads him to urge his men to wage an imaginary war ; a director and his actors are filming a cheap western in the place (the so called Indians and their wigs ) and the officer mistakes them for spies in the pay of Hussein .an astronomer is more interested in the stars than in love with his wife who finds solace with a shepherd ...whose she-goat has eaten a cassette the rally competitors need.
Once a cahiers du cinema critic , Luc Moullet turns back from the N. W. precepts and makes an entertaining movie, a shaggy-dog story , in a quiet place where to see two cars in a row is quite an event.
