L'enquête corse

A good portrait of Corsica, those who know this part of France will definitely enjoy it. Many actors are actual residents of Corsica, and the ambiance is nicely translated.

Even though the scenario isn't very complicated and elaborated, the story keeps you in and melts with the various aspects of Corsica : beautiful scenery, good charcuterie, good cheese, strong character (chants Corses, gangs preventing over-building), and of course the exquisite Myrte.

Christian Clavier and Jean Reno fit their role very well, a good movie that will make you laugh and want to visit this beautiful part of France.

I watched this movie last night and loved it.

From the opening scene where the caricatured bumbling mainland police are foiled by the caricatured independantist locals, I was laughing my head off.

Remi the private detective from Paris is hired on a commercial matter to go to Corsica to find Ange Leoni, the independantist who happens to be on the run from police.

Many farcical scenes ensue as Remi comes up against a closed culture while Ange plays cat and mouse with the police. Meanwhile rival gangs of independantists and rival judicial organisations all vie with each other for influence and control over events with mostly ridiculous results.

I've never been to Corsica, but if you've ever read "Asterix in Corsica", you will understand what all the jokes are about, although I doubt this movie would be anywhere near as much fun with subtitles.

The deliberately thick patois at the start is only there for colour - the rest of the movie is in lightly southern-accented French.

It's quite simple: It's almost impossible for foreigners to understand what's going on in this movie. You have to understand that this movie is based on a famous french comic-book. Therefore the jokes are exaggerated and - without any exception - all characters fit into well-known French/Corsican clichés. It's definitely not a big movie - but for Frenchmen (or people living in France, like me) it's at least very amusing. The Corsican landscape is pretty well filmed. Some of the scenes are indeed very stupid and without any logic - but please remember the comic book background. Reno and Clavier are o.k., but the real sensation is the incredibly beautiful leading lady (Ange Leoni's sister) - she is just worth looking this picture.

Christian Clavier does well when he plays a normal guy and his character works. Jack Palmer (Remi François) is about as straight and narrow as they come. He's good at his job and he doesn't get too distracted. The opening sequence does well to establish his character. He gets pulled into the criminal world of Corsica as he searches for Ange Leoni to let him know about a 2 million euro inheritance.

Catherine Munro is Gorgeous. I couldn't take my eyes off of her for the whole film. She plays Lea, the sister of Agne Leoni (played by Jean Reno). Lea is a smart and beautiful woman who takes a liking to Remi and that doesn't bode well for Ange. As Remi and Lea become closer, Ange becomes more upset and pulls Remi further into the Corsica lifestyle. It's got some good humor and beautiful scenery.

But it falls apart. Some of the jokes and editing don't work for the story. The acting, as far as I can tell, is decent. It's just not as good as it could be. There's something about the flow of scenes that falls short and it doesn't pay off in most scenes. In the end, you would do well to enjoy the scenery (I'm talking Catherine Munro), but you wouldn't be missing much if you didn't watch the whole film.

I watched this film recently on a French public TV station.

In the hope I'll see something in the vein of "Opération Corned Beef", one of my favourite French comedies which also stars Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, I got disappointed by this one. The dialogues between this duo aren't as memorable and performed not as snappy as in the aforementioned film.

Sure the Corsican landscapes and towns captured by this film are beautiful, it's not by coincidence people call Corsica "L'île de beauté" (The island of beauty) and the main actress is very nice to look at, but I think something like the comics album "Astérix en Corse" incapsulates better the Corsican mentality than this film even if there are a lot of parallels between these two.

In the end I have to admit I never read the comics which inspired "L'enquête corse", maybe I would have enjoyed the film more if I did.