Acclaimed French writer/director’s Francis Veber’s latest farce, L’emmerdeur (A Pain In The Ass), goes through the motions smoothly, even lazily, providing increasingly-intermittent smirks rather than genuine belly laughs.
A remake of Edouard Molinaro’s 1973 film that was based on the Veber’s own hit play from the late 1960’s, the new version stars Richard Berry as Jean Milan, a contract killer assigned to terminate, with extreme prejudice, Randoni (Michel Aumont), the key witness in one of France’s most high-profile trials. From a hotel window high above the courthouse, Milan prepares for the hit. All begins to go awry when a suicidally-depressed Francois Pignon (Patric Timsit) moves into the room next door, mourning the disintegration of his marriage to the exquisite Louise (a doe-eyed Virginie Ledoyen) at the adulterous hand of a sleazy psychiatrist, Dr. Wolf (Pascal Elbe).
Pignon’s failed suicide attempt brings him in contact with Milan, as well as a recurring comic foil in the form of a hotel employee (Laurent Paolini) who, in true French farce style, walks into hotel rooms unannounced at the most inopportune moments. From this set-up, a series of increasingly unbelievable slapstick set-pieces that occasionally amuse but mostly grow tiresome unfold, mostly at the clumsy expense of the Pignon character. His modus operandi is typical of Veber’s works – many of his films feature a sad-clown stereotype called Francois Pignon whose impact upon other characters is frustrating, feverish and ultimately cathartic.
A national treasure in his homeland, the 71 year-old Veber has had the market in sweet, silly, buddy comedies cornered for three decades. As director his revered work has included Le jouet (The Toy, 1976), Les comperes (1983), Les fugitives (1986) and its U.S. remake Three Fugitives (1989) starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short. In recent years he has been particularly prolific and creative, with a series of well-received comedies – Le dinner de cons (The Dinner Game, 1998), La placard (The Closet, 2001), the huge hit Tais-toi (2003), starring Gerard Depardieu and Jean Reno, and La doublure (The Valet, 2006).
But, despite strong comically-subtle performances from Berry and the underused Aumont, A Pain In The Ass feels undernourished as an 'odd-couple’ comedy and forced, perhaps due to all the action taking place in adjoining hotel rooms. As Pignon, Timsit is more imbecile than endearing and is particularly hard to accept as a) the ex-husband of the angelic Ledoyen, or b) anything other than a body-in-the-boot at the hands of a professional hit man like Milan.
Another shortcoming is the lowbrow nature of Veber’s slapstick. Hanging from window ledges, an ongoing door-slamming motif that grates and a poor-taste sequence where all the male characters get caught in graphic homosexual positions are just some of the moments that would not have been out-of-place in a Police Academy film.
Veber has a sure hand and there is no faulting his comedic rhythm, but A Pain In The Ass (itself a crass reference to elements of the script) seems below a director of such standing. If the script had been inherited, I would have guessed the film was a mismatch of director and material; as it is Veber’s own work, it represents a significant decline in the quality of his output of late.
