L'Emmerdeur (1973)
Directed by Edouard Molinaro

Film Review

The popular Belgian singer Jacques Brel stars along side Lino Ventura - the great hard man of French cinema - in this unique, totally bizarre black comedy.  The film was adapted from a popular stage play by Francis Veber and directed by Edouard Molinaro.  The same director-writer team would achieve even greater success in 1978 with the almost legendary hit La Cage aux folles.  L'Emmerdeur is a very different kind of film, eschewing farce and 'obvious' comic dialogue for underplayed deadpan humour in realistic settings - with a few brilliant visual gags thrown in along the way.

The chalk-and-cheese rapport between Ventura and Brel is perfect - their act resembling a surly panther whose sleep is being disturbed by a rather too playful lamb.  As the film develops, there's a marvellous sense of growing tension, an expectation that Ventura will lose his cool at any moment and swat Brel dead with the mere flick of a wrist.  The characters are well-developed (the script is one of Veber's best) and skilfully portrayed.  It's impossible not to feel for either character, although our sympathies ultimately end up on the side of the beleaguered Ventura (the actor is really on top form here, showing the same unbeatable flair for black comedy that he has for straight dramatic roles).   Brel and Ventura had previously worked together on Claude Lelouch's eccentric comedy L'Aventure, c'est l'aventure (1972).  The character of François Pignon would appear in a number of Veber's subsequent films, including Les Fugitifs (1986) and Le dîner de cons (1998), on each occasion played by a different actor.

As tends to happen with popular French film comedies, L'Emmerdeur was remade as an American film, Buddy Buddy (1981), directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Klaus Kinski.

Film Synopsis

François Pignon is a man who has lost the will to live.  After his wife Louise deserted him for her lover, this pathetic little salesman has only one thought: to hang himself.   To that end, he checks into an anonymous hotel and sets about his grim task, unaware that the man in the room nextdoor to his is about to carry out a professional killing.  The intended victim is the witness in an important trial, and Ralf Milan's orders are to shoot him dead as he walks out of the law courts facing the hotel.  Milan is busy making his preparations when Pignon's botched attempt to hang himself suddenly causes a water pipe to burst, with spectacular results.

The next thing the diligent hitman knows a torrent of water is gushing into his room, distracting him from his mission and driving him temporarily bananas.  Fearing that the suicidal man will betray him to the authorities, Milan comes to his aid and befriends him.  Believing that the his new friend is sincere, Pignon confides in him all the tragedies of his sorry existence and begs him to help him repair his broken marriage.  Milan knows that he is in too deep now to back out so he agrees, but if he expects Pignon to be a useful ally in his work he is in for a massive disappointment.  Without meaning to be, François is a grade A pain in the neck, the kind of man who drives everyone he comes into contact with to the absolute limits of infuriation.  Poor unsuspecting Ralf Milan is to be his next victim...