Pétrole! Pétrole! (1981) - film review

Jean-Marie Tardel is the managing director of a leading petroleum company.  His dominance in the marketplace is threatened when a modest garage attendant, Bernard Bérian, wins a bid to supply petrol from Africa at a price far below that of his competitors.  To make matters worse, Tardel’s own supplier, the Emir Abdullah, has announced that he intends to raise the price of his own oil.  During the Emir’s visit to Paris, Tardel does everything he can to win him round, knowing that if he fails he could be ruined.  Unfortunately, the Emir’s mind is on other matters...

One of the few films from director Christian Gion that has just about stood the test of time, Pétrole! Pétrole! is a chaotic comedy inspired by the oil crises of the 1970s. In common with many mainstream French comedies of this period, the film has a tendency for abject silliness of the worse kind, but amid the dross there are one or two decent laughs to be had. Despite a script which appears to have come out of an infants’ school, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Bernard Blier somehow manage to turn in some decent performances, although Blier clearly has a job portraying an oil sheik with any conviction. How to humiliate a great actor, step 1: stick a tea towel on his head and get him to impersonate an Arab. The political incorrectness of it all is enough to make you laugh.

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