Les Barbouzes (1964) - film review

After the death of an eminent weapons manufacturer, four ruthless secret agents named "Les Barbouzes" are assigned to recover the designs for a revolutionary thermonuclear device.   They attend the funeral of the dead man and set out, by foul means or fair, to obtain the secret plans of the weapon from his wife.  Unfortunately, a band of Chinese mercenaries and a persistent American arms dealer have the same idea...

After the huge success of Les Tontons flingueurs, an outrageously funny parody of the gangster film, the director-writer team Georges Lautner and Michel Audiard repeated their winning formula with Les Barbouzes.  This film, which is every bit as entertaining as Les Tontons flingueurs, makes an unrestrained yet intelligent parody of the spy thriller genre.

The combination of Michel Audiard’s sharp, witty dialogue and some outstanding comic performances makes this one of the most memorable of popular French films from the 1960s.  That incomparable trio from Les Tontons Flingueurs, Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier and Francis Blanche, are re-united to knock out some magnificent comedy, replete with acerbic one-liners in an on-going tireless battle of wits.  Mireille Darc, Charles Millot and Jess Hahn also turn in some fine comic performances.

Les Barbouzes is nothing less than a non-stop stream of comic situations which marry some brilliant comic dialogue with shamelessly over-the-top visual jokes.  What makes the comedy so particularly effective is that most of the cast play their parts as if they were in a conventional thriller.  Francis Blanche is the only actor who is obviously playing for laughs.   Far from ridiculing the genre which it parodies, Les Barbouzes makes some kind of bizarre homage to it – whilst simultaneously having a great deal of fun.  Thriller parodies really don’t get much cheekier than this.

© James Travers 2003

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?