Dupla Confusão

I watched this movie accidentally (other theatres were closed during the Easter) but it turned out to be my best choice! I laughed throughout the movie. Gérard Depardieu is giving his best, and so is Jean Reno. The plot is simple, but enough to make you laugh. There are fast changing scenes but that's ok, in fact the director skips the non-funny parts this way :) Only flaw, some violence scenes that could be avoided (gunshots and wounds).

A must-see.

9/10

Great to see that Francis Veber, the natural heir to Billy Wilder, is still alive and well and turning out crowd-pleasers like this. Truffaut will be turning in his grave - I hope - to know that fifty years on from his vitriol-fuelled attack, 'a certain tendency ...' on PROFESSIONAL CRAFTSMANSHIP, filmmakers, and FRENCH filmmakers at that, have not abandoned, as he urged, strong stories, sound directing, and star performances. Here we have a Depardieu a good 30 pounds lighter than of yore and looking younger with it, playing the village idiot to a fare-thee-well against Jean Reno's strong silent type. Compared to Depardieu, who never stops talking (tais-toi translates literally to 'shut up') Reno's words are as carefully measured as tea-bags in Tel Aviv. Only see this movie if you're into verbal wit laced with sight gags and thick-ear confrontations involving a three-way split between Depardieu/Reno, the flics and a team of semi-hard men. Not quite Veber's best but still a respectable 8/10.

I have just returned from the cinema with a burst of energy!

Without doubt, this is THE funniest movie that I have ever seen in my life...be it in French or English. Francis Veber has produced a film that not only equals his earlier works, Le Placard (The Closet - 2001) and Le Diner de Cons (The Dinner Game - 1998), but surpasses them by miles. The entire cinema was rocking with laughter.

And without spoiling the comedy by disclosing some hillarious punchlines, I recommend this film to all cinema-goers, be they French- or English-speakers.

Do yourself a favour... GO AND SEE IT!

10/10.

Francis Veber has been known for his ability to construct extremely entertaining films. Most of his films are built in the same way, very classical. This mix includes 2 main characters, who basically shouldn't have anything to do with each other but who due to circumstances get together. Then you add a couple of truculent second roles and a series of inevitable clashes between those two. This structure was used among others in "La Chèvre (The Goat) 1981", starring Pierre Richard and Gerard Depardieu. An interesting point about Depardieu is that while he played the tough guy in The Goat, he got the opposite role, the stupid, nice guy in "Tais-toi (Ruby & Quentin)". Needless to say he is evenly amazing in both, even more as the stupid character where he brings such a pure, simple sense of humanity that you can't feel sympathy for him. Both films deserves their place in an anthology of french humour. Francis Veber likes those -a little bit simple- guys because they offer a lot of potential for comic situations. And while you laugh at these naive character, it's never aimed to make fool of them. Their humanity always eventually prevail and even the tough guy, the one who just wanted to get rid of them at the beginning of the film, finally likes them. In their simplicity, they saw or did things a tough guy would never do, but in a certain unlikely way, they helped. So Tais-toi is a skillfully crafted piece of pure enjoyment, I would even say a master work in the comedy category. No dead moments, every single line of the script is there for a single purpose: to entertain us without appealing to our worst instincts. On the contrary.

Well this movie is one of the greatest comedies I've ever seen. If the movie lasts 1h 20 min you'll laugh maybe 1h 20min. Gerard Depardieu and Jean Reno's (perhaps the two greatest French actors) performances are amazing. They play the part of a fool (Gerard Depardieu) and an intelligent murderer (Jean Reno). The story is also good, not too silly and not too serious. The movie isn't very long which is great too (you know comedies mustn't be too long).I strongly recommend this film for people of all ages (I'm 13 years old, i saw it with my mom and she thought the movie was great too). I had seen some French films before and they were good, I'm starting to like French films and this is not the exception.