Albert est méchant (2004) - film review

When his father, the celebrated author Jo, dies, Patrick Lechat assumes that he will automatically inherit a fortune.  Unfortunately, it is not to be.  Jo has left his entire estate to his half-brother, Albert Moulinot, a reclusive old man who lives alone on an island in Dordogne with a wild boar as his only companion.   Desperate for some easy money, Patrick visits Albert to try to persuade him to offer him a share of his father’s inheritance.  To his surprise, Patrick discovers that Albert has no interest in money and agrees to give him the entire inheritance – on the sole condition that he accompanies Patrick to Paris to sign the necessary legal documents.  Patrick’s nightmare has just begun…

This lowbrow family comedy gets off to a promising start but within a matter of minutes its failings become all too apparent.  The plot is instantly predictable and rapidly degenerates into a rather silly routine comedy, with the film’s three stars – Clavier, Dombasle and Serrault – dropping lazily into their stereotypical character grooves.   Like many of Hervé Palud’s earlier films – for example, the risible Un indien dans la ville (1994) – the comic situations are so idiotic and contrived, the characterisation so hackneyed and shallow, that the whole ghastly thing is viscerally painful to watch.

© James Travers 2006

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