Tout ça... pour ça!

In spite of shortcomings and with hindsight, "Tout ca...pour ca!" might be Claude Lelouch's most palatable moment of all the works he left in the nineties. It would be a lie to hail it as a masterwork (you can count on the fingers of one hand the films that reach this level in the filmmaker's copious filmography) but it is filled with enough energy and humor to omit boredom.

It's a "Lelouchian" work to the core with some of the topics cherished by the filmmaker throughout his career: love affairs between men and women, chance that links some men's fate. These two themes are the backbone of the two chief plots of the film. On the first road, we follow the love to-in gs and fro-in gs of a judge (Francis Huster) and a lawyer (Fabrice Lucchini) with their wives and mistresses. Then, on a second road, Lelouch films the adventures of three immature men acted by Gérard Darmon as a taxi driver, Vincent Lindon as a waiter and Jacques Gamblin. They wound up together after a disappointing love affair for each of them and plan to earn as much money as they can to leave France with Jacques Gamblin's daughter. Their two-bit tricks and swindles will bring them to court.

Do these two plots complement themselves? There's superimposition and you have to wait until the end to see fusion maintained. Frankly, Lelouch had better discarded his judges' love stories because they are uninteresting and flimsy. It's the same drawback as "le Chat et la Souris" (1975), another honorable effort from Lelouch in which all that deal with Philipe Léotard's sentimental life was gratuitous filler. And in spite of Lelouch's virtuosity at camera, his directing seems extracted from a film of the seventies and makes his effort a little obsolete. It also could have gained with a more tightened editing.

But when the film lays the focus on the incredible adventures of the colorful threesome of men, it really gathers pace and takes off thanks to the energy conveyed by the three actors. It amounts to a beneficent change of scene fueled with humor.

All this for that? It means a little lame but enjoyable excursion from a filmmaker who persists in developing his personal ideas in films? Well yes. But if this film made of two unlikely plots charmed you, at least Lelouch won't have worked in vain.

This is a French film that's decent but won't exactly knock your socks off. It is a slow-moving film, too slow overall for most people's tastes including mine in this instance.

The three guys and their respective love affairs are at least somewhat interesting, but the time spent on these judges and their love stories is so tedious it's beyond boredom.

Marie-Sophie Lelouch, the wife the man who directed this film had a really pretty face that I enjoyed admiring. That, and clean language throughout the story, have my thanks, but little else in here is worthy of much praise.

Somewhere in here was a minor crime story but basically, this film is all talk, talk, talk and more talk, and you keep waiting for something to happen.....anything! The translation of this title to English sums up the movie: "All this....for just that?" That's the way I felt after watching this snooze-fest, or as Peggy Lee immortalized in song, "Is That All There Is?"

Even though Lelouch is not a usual French director who shots very talkative people in his movies, this one is a perfect example of what French cinema is known for. The plot is about a trial against three men who tried to earn loads of money by illegal methods to get to Canada and about the lawyers and the judge who get on with the trial and who are being unfaithful to their couples. In the third part of the movie we realize that all the characters are connected when the trial itself is showed. In between, the characters talking,talking,talking and talking their superfluous conversations as usual in French cinema. This is not a must see, but it's nice enough if you don't have any other better thing to do than watch this movie.

This is one of the best Lelouch ever. All human feeling are brilliantly mixed together to create a wonderful blend of emotions, moves, beauty...and fun!

Love, hate, greed, Invention, Chance, Crookedness,Humor are the key ingredients of this brilliantly interwoven scenario, well served by the best actors of their generation. Ravishing women ( Marie-Sophie L. and Allessandra Martines, both former Lelouch Wifes or lovers) and Talented men (Luchini, Huster but also Darmon, Gamblin, Gérard, Lindon).

Of course, its talkative , at times, and you need either a good practice of french or good subtitles and to see it twice ! Definitely a "Must See".