Film Review
The deadly sin of avarice is the subject of this zany Gérard Oury comedy.
Molière it certainly isn't but Oury manages at least to provide a respectable eighty
minutes of good family entertainment. Whilst it isn't in the league of the director's
earlier great comedies -
La Grande vadrouille (1965), etc - Oury still
knows how to make an audience laugh and
La Soif de l'or
is just one long sequence of hilarious comic set-pieces. Admittedly, a few
of the jokes are laboured and repetitive, and a few plot ideas - such as Urbain chasing
after a girl at the risk of losing his fortune - don't make sense. The casting is
also a disappointment. Oury's film comedies really need a great comic performer
- someone like Bourvil, Louis de Funès or Pierre Richard - to provide a focal point.
Although Christian Clavier does a reasonably good job, he's hardly up to the task, and
without much help from a pretty undistinguished supporting cast (Catherine Jabob is just
plain irritating),
La Soif de l'or lacks that
magical spark which lights up Oury's more successful comedies.
© James Travers 2006
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Next Gérard Oury film:
Fantôme avec chauffeur (1996)
Film Synopsis
Urbain Donnadieu's first love is money. It's also his second, third and fourth love.
The only reason he married - a tax inspector named Fleurette - was to evade a fine for
tax evasion. For several years, he has been stealing money from his construction
company and buying gold bars with his ill-gotten gains. His plan is to deposit all
this wealth in a Swiss Bank, where neither his wife - whom he is about to divorce - nor
the French State can get at it. Accompanied by his money-grabbing grandmother Zézette,
Urbain heads off for Switzerland, with his gold concealed in the walls of a model house
on the back of a trailer. Unfortunately, his scheme is threatened by his wife and
his embittered ex-chauffeur, who are determined to get his money at any cost...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.