A dedicated private eye searches for a businessman's daughter in Mexico, but the case is complicated by the amateur sleuthing of the client's accountant.First of all, it is worth noting that the movie is sadly infamous in Italy for a burning of a cinema in Turin in which it was projected, killing 63 people. So our hearts go out to them, even all these years later.The comedy is good, the detective angle is just alright. Although I have not seen the remake, my understanding is that Martin Short plays the comedic role. And that is simply perfect casting, because the actor here is very much a Martin Short-esque comedian. Or perhaps Short is influenced by this film?

This is one of those cool French movies with weird characters and it makes me want to come back to them. Unfortunately, like all movies, there are some good and some bad. This is one of the good ones.The extremely clumsy daughter of a Paris businessman is kidnapped on a trip to Mexico. She is not taken for a ransom, but for a prostitute, but ends up proving too much trouble. The father, desperate to find his daughter again, decides to listen to his weird psychologist who suggests that he look for his daughter by using another clumsy person. As such, this movie becomes an odd couple with a detective and a clumsy oath having to work together to find this woman.This is a good little movie with a lot of slapstick humour. Slapstick, done well, can be very funny. I think it is done quite well in this movie. In fact, the clumsy characters mean that a lot of the comedy relies on slapstick, and the occasional stupid statement. I think that it is done quite well.The one thing that comes out of the movie is the idea of true love. This only comes in right at the end, but it works on the idea of the soul mate - that is one person has somebody who is so much alike that they will find each other and be instantly attracted to each other upon meeting. We don't understand this until the end, where they see each other, and simply walk out onto the pier hand in hand. There is not sweet talk or anything, they simply take each others hands and walk out - as if it was always meant to be. This, to me, is one of the most beautiful scenes that I have ever seen.I, of course, don't believe in the idea of the soul mate, or true love. There are people which we are more attracted to than others, and sometimes things like this will happen, but the idea that everybody has a soul mate is not true. Some people say that God has a person set aside for us, but that is not what the bible says. In fact, the bible says that some people will not get married, preferring to do God's work alone. People, like my mother and father, love each other very much, but are hardly considered to be soul mates. In fact, the saying that opposites attract is more true than not.Still, this is a beautiful little movie and I really did enjoy it.

If you want to see what comedy should be, instead of the gross-out humor passed off as comedy in movies like Austin Powers, see this film. This forgotten gem stars a very young Gérard Depardieu as adetective hired to find the missing daughter of a business. It is shot in the French tradition of visual comedy, and is very, very funny.POSSIBLE SPOILERS:Gérard's character, a no-nonsense detective who does not believe in superstitions or "luck", has been teamed with a hapless man whose life seems to disprove the notion that bad luck does not exist. The missing girl also has had a life of extraordinary mishaps, and her father believes that this poor schmuck will be like a guide dog leading Depardieu straight to her. Depardieu's mission becomes more and more simply trying to keep this poor shmoe alive as he searches for the businessman's daughter, and continues to disbelieve his claims of bad luck; until it starts to rub off on him. By the end of the film, he is a superstitious nervous wreck, and it is fun to see this handsome leading man developing a nervous tic and believing the smallest occurrences are "a sign" that something bad is about to happen. A long stream of unpredictable and inventive incidents occur throughout the movie that would convince anyone that carrying a lucky charm is not such a bad idea after all. The end is a masterpiece of French visual humor. If you like Depardieu, check this out sometime. There are worse ways (and movies) to spend your evening. By the way, Martin Short and Danny Glover remade this movie a few years ago, and it was not a tenth as funny as the original; proving that American screenwriters need to smarten up their writing. Seven stars for me.

These two actors are great together, and their three films are all funny (La Chevre, Les Comperes, Les Fugitifs), but this one is the best because of its concept that it will take an unlucky detective to find the missing unlucky girl. But he is more than unlucky; he is also a deluded jerk (though not a mean one)who doesn't even know he is unlucky. His partner, a very competent realist (and perfect straight man) has to rescue him time after time to follow his unlucky course toward the girl. Great French humor.