Objectively - not bad comedy with two good actors. Classics. Subjectively - always were very annoying films about idiots. There have never been funny for me random "flat humor" situations.

I saw this at the Seattle Film Festival during a press screening and enjoyed it so much that I took my husband to see the film again during the festival at Cinerama. The film is infectiously funny, and it's a good thing it was subtitled, because people were laughing so hard that the dialogue was often drowned out. It is such a broad, slapstick comedy that it isn't surprising that crotchety reviewers weren't especially enthusiastic, but it is a great shame that the film hasn't been distributed in the US. The audience response was overwhelmingly positive. Were it released on DVD, I would buy a copy and put it on whenever I needed a lift. You can't go wrong with Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu paired together in a movie directed by Francis Verber.

at last all those French lessons paid off. I laughed in French. Not quite "haw haw he haw"; but real belly laughs. This film by Francis Verber with Jean Reno playing the solemn solid straight man to Gerard Depardieu's comic idiot is wonderful and worth seeing right now. Reno plays Ruby the cool professional hard-man out for revenge against the gangland Bigman who has murdered his lover. He finds himself lumbered with Depardieu's Quintin, the simpleton from Montargis. There is plenty of slapstick, good lines, cross dressing; pathos and verve.Aver, un petite question? In the middle of the film they both end up in a Psychiatric hospital as a route to escaping from prison. The Psychiatric Hospital is portrayed much as the fears of the 60s showed them; people strapped to beds; forcibly injected to numb them out of their skulls; frog marched around the high walled secure grounds by men in white coats. St Bernards in West London when I was a schoolboy in Southall had that feel to it. So much has been done to try and ease the myths about madness and does this just set things back? I've worked in Psychiatry for a 3rd of a century and things have moved on. Those inkblots are more likely to be just stains now in a dark history. it left me a bit uneasy that madness is still a source for a caricatured laugh. But, then again, there are moves now to start locking wards again, to depersonalise people, to make security of the outside more important than sanctuary for the troubled; and maybe this film actually does a service to warn against that backward move.So, a winner all round. go see.

I saw this film when it premiered in the U.S. and have been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to get into distribution so I can see it again. Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu are such an odd and wonderful pairing. I think only French actors and a French director could have done such an unlikely thing so well. These are two of the finest actors each in their own right; but they manage to put egos aside while coming up with odd little nuances that had me crying with laughter.Personally, I found it refreshing to see a story that I haven't seen a thousand times already and especially a comedy that does not rely on stale or embarrassing humor. Thumbs up for Francis Veber (Writer/Director) for an original and engaging film! The film is sophisticated, touching and endearing. I am genuinely surprised that it never hit the U.S. market.