Tête à claques

Francis Perrin is certainly a nice actor and his comic skills are arguably unquestionable;in his screenplay,he occasionally comes up with one very witty line or two.In his story,he works as a taxi driver and he 's also a song writer:the song he wrote is very infectious ,with its very late fifties/early sixties Doo wop accents.

But ,as a director,his work leaves a lot to be desired with often awful results:all that surrounds him is really mediocre,with cardboard characters and actors who,left to their own devices, overplay and ham it up ,which is rather infuriating in the long run: the rich kid (obviously inspired by Claudette Colbert's part in "New -York Miami"and so many others),who, thanks to her dough ,is allowed to insult the police with her band of would be anachronistic hippies with impunity but is warmly welcomed in papa's bank;the suicidal son (inspired by Bud Cort's part in "Harold and Maude") whose attempts are not even funny ,the obligatory mom-in-law as the villain (her last line is the only real surprise of a hackneyed story);and to top it all,a brat (à la "Kramer VS Kramer" ) who,depending on your taste is either cute and smart or the most unbearable kid in the history of cinema.

Francis Perrin is certainly talented ,but his movie is an awful mess,with a distastefully bourgeois side.