La Totale! (1991)
Directed by Claude Zidi

Film Review

Thierry Lhermitte and Miou-Miou top the bill in this well-intended but somewhat over-the-top thriller parody from director Claude Zidi.  Although there are a few very funny comic sequences, and the basic premise of the film is an appealing one, Zidi doesn't quite manage to pull this one off.   (Lhermitte's previous collaboration with Zidi, Les Ripoux (1984) is a much better film.)  The pace of the film is uneven, some of the dialogue is painfully trite, and the parody sequences are too “obvious” to be really effective.   That said, there are a few plus points.  Michel Boujenah is terrific as the mysterious Simon (is he Arthur Daley's apprentice or Osama Bin Laden's second lieutenant?), the episode with the bugged handbag is hilarious, and the scene near the end where Miou-Miou is accidentally transformed in "Mrs Terminator" has to be seen to be believed.  Not the most sophisticated or well-oiled of comedy thrillers, but La Totale! just about passes for entertainment.

As often happens with popular French comedies, an American re-make of the film hit the screens a few years later.  Directed by James Cameron and starring none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, True Lies (1994) proved to be an international hit, and a rare exception of an American re-make being better than the original French film that inspired it.

Film Synopsis

To all who know him, François Voisin is nothing more than an ordinary family man and telecoms engineer.  In reality, he is an experienced secret agent whose improbable exploits of the past two decades could fill the pages of several long (albeit mediocre) thriller novels.  By exercising remarkable self-restraint, François has been able to keep his profession a secret from his family and friends, but this becomes difficult when he learns that his wife Hélène has been cheating on him and his son Julien has been bunking off school.  Curious to know where his son goes when he is not in the classroom, François has his him followed and then sets about spying on his wife's secret assignations by using all the tricks of his trade.

With the help of the latest in surveillance equipment, François learns that his wife's mysterious lover is a used car salesman named Marcel, a mythomaniac who tries to pass himself off as an international terrorist.  This gives the jealous husband an idea for winning his wife back, by getting her to play the role of a secret agent.  Things go badly wrong when Hélène is abducted by a notorious gangster, Sarris, who has apparently been on the French security services' radar for some time.  After he is himself captured, François is bundled into a plane with his wife and taken to an unknown destination in the Middle East.  The adventure has a few more unexpected twists and turns before it arrives at its highly implausible conclusion...