Le Vilain (2009) - film review

After twenty years, career bank robber Sidney Thomas, nicknamed le Vilain, returns to his mother, looking for a safe hiding place.  Old Mrs Thomas is naive but when she learns of her son’s true nature she takes it upon herself to put him back on the straight and narrow.  Unfortunately, Sidney has no intention of giving up his career of crime, and so what ensues is a desperate battle of wills between a mother and her son...

Over the past decade, Albert Dupontel has steadily earned a reputation as one of the most talented and versatile actors in French cinema, equally at home in straight dramatic roles (Michel Deville’s La Maladie de Sachs) as in outrageous comedic parts (Valérie Guignabodet’s Monique).  He is also emerging as one of the country’s most original mainstream filmmakers, his distinctive off-the-wall comedies providing a very welcome alternative to the increasingly banal and unfunny comic offerings from his contemporaries.

Le Vilain is Dupontel’s fourth directorial outing, and it is easily his best - a completely unhinged mix of surreal farce and black comedy in which a dear old lady with a ruthless streak (and an uncanny resemblance to the present British monarch) attempts to rehabilitate her wayward son.  As in Dupontel’s previous three films -  Bernie (1996), Le Créateur (1999) and Enfermés dehors (2006) - this latest frenetic romp is a heady concoction of acerbic humour and traditional burlesque which will have you in stitches.  It is so quirky that it is hard to sum up, but you might describe it is as a punk Tarantino-inspired homage to Arsenic and Old Lace and The Ladykillers.  

In this mad, mad world (in which the main threat comes from psychopathic tortoises), Dupontel is best suited to play the lead character (the sadistic trigger happy hoodlum) opposite the equally talented Catherine Frot (as his cunning mum).  Here, Frot is made up to look forty years older than she really is and is virtually unrecognisable beneath the grey curls and latex, yet her aptitude for playing sly folcoche characters makes her an ideal casting choice.  Dupontel and Frot spark of each other superbly, rendering the rest of the cast (killer tortoise excluded) pretty superfluous.   Directed, scripted and acted with consummate flair, Le Vilain is easily one of the most enjoyable French comedies in recent years.  It is certainly the most eccentric.

© James Travers 2010

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