At a time when French cinema is at, IMHO, its lowest ebb, with not a single great auteur in sight, I had come to rely on Francis Veber to provide excellence in comedy if of only a not very profound type. After Three Fugitives (both versions) and Le Dîner des Cons (to name just two) his films seemed to be heading into Blake Edwards territory.But, oh my word!, what a catastrophe is this grotesque. The central character drifts through a series of 'adventures' involving an unpleasant millionaire (Daniel Auteuil) who is cheating on his wife (the fabulous Kristin Scott Thomas) with a model. The whole thing is flat as a pancake, probably due to the casting of Gad Elmaleh - French cinema's most over-rated actor. This numb-skull drifts through promising scenes but doesn't give what is needed to bring them alive.This is all the more troubling as, given he is playing the same character (or at least the character with the same name) as the central character in Le Dîner des Cons, François Pignon, One imagines what the magnificent Jacques Villeret could have done in the same rôle, had he not died just before the film went into production.

Not quite as hilarious as earlier Veber concoctions, but as funny as modern-day bedroom farces may get nowadays. The French are masters at that type of comedy.The actors do their best with their paper-thin, but likable characters, some scenes work wonderfully, others feel too forced, but the good-natured proceedings ensure pleasurable viewing.A certain snappiness would've given the material's fluffiness the necessary edge.Still watchable, though the final joke's too silly.6 out of 10 unlikely playboys

Basically the storyline is as hackneyed as could be: wealthy exec (Daniel Auteuil) gets caught in the company of a supermodel (Alice Taglioni) who is not his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas). To avoid scandal and the possibility of divorce and losing half his fortune, Auteuil and his lawyer concoct a scheme whereby an innocent bystander (Gad Elmaleh) who happened to be very close when the incriminating pictures were snapped will be paid to pretend that Taglioni is his girlfriend and living with him. Alas this complicates life for Elmaleh, a working-class valet, in his pursuit of his own true love, a struggling book store owner played by Virginie Ledoyen. And Taglioni gets more and more angry at Auteuil for dicking her around, promising to divorce his wife but clearly not wanting to.This plot could come out of a screwball comedy from the 30s, Three's Company, any number of French or Italian sex farces of the 60s-70s, etc. That alone isn't necessarily a problem, but when you've got a really ordinary, simple storyline you've really got to work to make it interesting -- and alas writer/director Francis Veber doesn't do anything with the material that isn't highly predictable and dull. Auteuil spends much of his time mugging or getting over-the-top angry and becomes more and more of a scumbag as the film goes on - want to guess whether he and Taglioni end up together at the end? Scott Thomas is one-note severe, calculating, nasty - it's clear from the first that she and Auteuil deserve each other. Our lowly valet manages to prove his love for his bookstore owner ideal, the supermodel turns out to be the nicest and most mature person of the whole bunch, those that deserve to be happy are, etc.There were some nice touches here and there - the valet's father is chronically sick, but the doctor who attends him is even sicker and the father ends up attending to his physician more than the reverse; I kind of liked the jag-off cell phone salesman who is also pursuing Ledoyen, at least at first, he's so over-the-top smarmy. But mostly this was by-the-numbers rom-com, and with a PG-13 rating it doesn't even get to have any sex to speak of - very mild and lacking in juice all around. And what was with the extremely bright, overlit cinematography throughout? It's Paris, not Cannes.At least it was short.

This is a very good movie, not a masterpiece, but a very good one, even if, unfortunately, it's spoiled. I own the DVD, and every time I looked at it, I felt somehow unsatisfied, in the end, and I couldn't understand why, until finally I realized: this movie lacks a heart. It's cold, a perfect mechanism, but with no heart. It's been so carefully written and played, but the passion is not there. There's no real human being in there, only puppets without soul. And that's a real shame, because everything else works, in a way. The idea is good (altho not very believable), Paris looks marvelous, the gags are funny, and the choice of actors is great. But the final result is cold, self-centered, in a very modern-french-movie way. I would definitely suggest it for renting (at least it'll make you feel like you're living in Paris), but not to buy. One final note about Alice Taglioni: she's a unique example of an incredibly beautiful woman who can be funny. Among such great actors, she manages to escape the puppet mechanism and be human, wonderfully so. Alice, if you're reading this, marry me :)