Benoît Poelvoorde & Roschdy Zem are two of the most interesting performers making films right now but they don't seem to inhabit the same universe and having emerging director Beauvais, from "Of Gods & Men", steer them though a film about ransoming Charlie Chaplin's body could have gone in any direction. For most of "La rançon de la gloire" the film 's tone is uneasy - a few giggles, a few surreal touches like Poelvoorde finding himself in the middle of a circus, lots of character development and a bit (not enough) of suspense.Comes the trial climax and the defense convincing us that the lead duo are Chaplin characters pulls it all together. Nice touches - Michel Legrand on the 'phone to go with the clip of a TV "Demoiselles de Rochefort", the car snaking along the highway at night to the "Limelight" Theme, Zem and Mastroianni from Beauvais' first movie, Nour from "Caramel", the beautiful quality Chaplin clips, his great looking grand-daughter in person and Benoit and Noirjean doing the circus clown act I remember from the fifties, not to mention the snappy post titles gag.

On Wednesday January the 7th, the very same day the Charlie Hebdo magazine slaughter occurred in Paris, this movie was released in France. A movie speaking of...Charlie Chaplin. Sad coincidence. There was another film with a lead character named Charlie, released the same day: L'AFFAIRE SK1, which I talked about last week. But speaking of this feature, it's the tale of two petty fiends who decide to steal the Charlie Chaplin's coffin in order to get a ransom. A mix up of comedy and drama. You have here awesome performances. Especially the Chaplin's butler's one. The scene where he looks at the workers getting his master's coffin from the ground, after the end of the abducting affair, this sequence is poignant at the most. Here you also have Chaplin's grand daughter playing Chaplin's daughter. Yes folks, this film is a great homage to this great actor. And to the very end. A splendid film indeed. You can think of Andrew Mc Laglen's THE ABDUCTORS, made in the late fifties, speaking of the abduction of Abraham Lincoln's corpse by a bunch of hoodlums.