Ils sont partout

It helps if you're already familiar with some of the religious and cultural themes - and have a thick skin - some of this stuff is so funny it's gotta be offending somebody somewhere

I thought this was intelligently made for a comedy, most of them today being full of many cliches and over acting for easy laughs.

I don't see many French/Euro comedies but for comparison I liked this more than Look Who's Back, the German film about Hitler. The acting and directing are not as obvious as that film.

Most of the cast, between 7-10 of them, put on a good performance. They also manage to avoid the Annoyance Factor with movies about 'us minorities' and how everyone misjudges us. This is clever in that regard because most film makers do that terribly and attract the ire of a mainly right wing crowd who wince at the political correctness.

Yvan Attal must be commended because this isn't PC; it goes into the depths of irrational thinking about 'background' without hitting people over the head with the anti-semetism diatribe. But it is primarily quite a hilarious movie.

This film is a must watch if you're Jewish and growing increasingly fed up with the growing levels of antisemitism across the west. I can only imagine its relatively poor score on this site is down to the fact that most reviewers don't fall into that category.

Because this film is funny - hilarious in fact. I was crying with laughter in places. But it may only be funny if you're Jewish and recognise the stereotypes, both in the sketches and in the main character, a Jewish man seeking therapy for being obsessed with the Jews and anti-semitism.

Excerpts from his therapy sessions are interspersed with what are essentially short stories, each one revolving around a Jewish stereotype and featuring a cast of characters who don't reappear. There's the Jew who wonders why he isn't rich when all the others are; the Nazi who belatedly discovers that he is a Jew; two Jews arguing over increasingly outlandish hypotheticals relating to chimney sweeps. The oddest short story involves a Mossad agent who travels back in time to kill Jesus, proving once again that in French cinema, literally anything can happen.

At times it's quite poignant and thought provoking, the director has been clever enough not to go just for laughs all the time, the result being that when they do come, they act as much as comic relief as mere entertainment. Which is precisely what we Jews need in this day and age, isn't it? A bit of comic relief.

Overall I was bored while watching this movie. Several short stories make up the film and a couple of them were humorous. Most of them were heavy and somewhat dark. Dany Boon was terrific as always and Charlotte Gainsbourg was magnetic. I didn't really enjoy this movie but I was curious enough about what would happen that I watched through to the end.

I thought this was a great film. I do emphatically disagree that one needs to be Jewish to appreciate the film. In fact the same types of stereotypes exist against minority communities everywhere. One could make this film about Greeks in Turkey, Israeli stereotypes against Palestinians living in Israel, Koreans living in Japan and scores and scores of other examples.