Les Parrains is a French comedy thriller film first released in 2005, directed by Frédéric Forestier.  The film stars Gérard Lanvin, Jacques Villeret, Gérard Darmon, Pascal Reneric and Hélène Seuzaret.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


In 1980, four crooks – Max, Lucien, Serge and Henri – fail to pull off a daring jewel robbery.  Max ends up in prison whilst his three partners in crime escape and settle into humdrum, semi-respectable lives.  Twenty-five years after the robbery, Lucien, Serge and Henri are summoned to the offices of Max’s solicitor to attend the reading of his will.  It appears that, before his arrest, Max managed to hide the stolen booty, and this he has bequeathed to his three friends and his son, Rémy.   The ex-crooks will only receive their share of the inheritance once they have given Rémy’s his.  Unfortunately, shortly after Lucien, Serge and Henri have made Rémy’s acquaintance, the suitcase containing his share is destroyed.  Having failed to trick Rémy with a substitute suitcase, the three friends allow him to talk them into carrying out another heist planned by his father.  However, things aren’t quite what they seem...

On paper, Les Parrains looks like a sure-fire hit.  An updated version of the parody thriller which was massively popular in the 1960s, a cast featuring three of French cinema’s biggest personalities – Gérard Darmon, Gérard Lanvin and Jacques Villeret – and a budget which most French film directors can only dream of... What could possibly go wrong?

Despite its impressive production values, Les Parrains is really just a poor man’s version of Les Tontons flingueurs, a pale immitation of the classic films it pays homage to.  The main problem is that the film tries too hard to please and ends being rather predictable, uneven and characterless.  The implausible plot twists add complexity without any intellectual payback, which greatly diminishes the film’s appeal.  There are a handful of very good jokes, but given the calibre of its lead performers, it merits far more.   At least Gérard Darmon manages to extort some decent laughs from the lacklustre material he is given. (But then again, he could reduce an audience of comatose nuns to hysterics just by reading out the Maastricht Treaty.)

As in his earlier film, Le Boulet (2002), director Frédéric Forestier appears to be more concerned with visual impact than with narrative substance and character.  As a result, the film looks stylish and has some respectable action sequences, but the storyline and the characters are just too ridiculous to hold any credibility.  Les Parrains is mildly entertaining, but  it is to be regretted that Jacques Villeret is so under-used in this, one of his last films before his untimely death.

© James Travers 2007

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