By Richard Winters
My Rating: 5 out of 10
4-Word Review: Robber disguised as clown.
Grimm (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has come-up with what he considers to be an ingenious plan. He will rob a bank disguised as clown with two of his friends, Georges (Guy Marchand) and Lise (Kim Cattrall). While he’ll be a clown the other two will pretend to be bank customers and then when he agrees with the Police Commander Simon (Jean-Pierre Marielle), whom he is negotiating with via phone, to release some hostages he’ll let Georges and Lise ‘go’ and no one will know the difference. Meanwhile Grimm will take-off his clown disguise and put on a new one as an old man while pretending that the clown is still inside holding the rest of the bank employees and customers at gunpoint. By the time the police catch-on that there’s no longer any clown the three hope to have escaped on a plane and be far away. While the robbery works without a flaw the getting on the plane part becomes a major, if not impossible, challenge.
The story is based on the novel ‘Quick Change’ by Jay Cronley, which 5 years later was made into another, better known movie that starred Bill Murray. This was a French production that was filmed on-location in Montreal, Canada and one of the few movies that starred Belmondo that didn’t do well financially back in his home country and in-fact it was the first staring vehicle of his that didn’t crack the top 10 of highest grossing movies of that year, which was the first for him since 1976 when L’Alpagueur achieved only 19th place.
Belmondo is certainly a legendary actor whose long and storied career deserves to be admired, but I didn’t care for him here and felt his presence actually brought down the whole movie. He was apparently quite admired behind-the-scenes amongst the cast and crew and he did all of his own stunts including a scene where he climbs out of a moving car and manages to slither his way, while the vehicle is still going at high speeds, onto a tow truck and he did this while already being in his mid-50’s. However, his character is overly cocky and his glib conversational interplay between he and the police chief does not come-off as funny and more like you side with the chief and want to see this arrogant man caught. You’d think someone who had never pulled-off a robbery before would be much more nervous, or at least display some signs of anxiety, so his unbridled confidence seems completely out-of-place with the situation he’s in.
If anything I enjoyed Marchand and Cattrall far better as these two seemed much more human and displayed the insecurity you’d expect. They were like regular people full of foibles and someone you’d actually want to root for and thus I felt the movie would’ve been greatly improved had it just focused on the couple doing the robbing and cut-out Belmondo’s part completely. I also didn’t think the clown disguise worked as unlike in the American version his whole face isn’t covered with white paint and instead simply uses a red wig, a red clown nose, and some eyebrows, which I didn’t feel would be enough to hide his true identity and witnesses could’ve easily recognized who he was outside of the clown get-up and thus the whole disguise thing ends-up defeating its own purpose.
The first act works pretty well with shades of Dog Day Afternoon and some offbeat moments to the bank robbery theme by having one scene where the hostages are forced to get in a circle and sing a rendition of ‘London Bridges Falling Down’. The second and third acts though become protracted and seem to be the start of a whole different movie altogether. The bank segment has a crafty, sophisticated tone where the humor has a satirical bent and the main characters seem smart, savvy, and cool. In the second half the movie suddenly becomes like a live action cartoon with an abundance of car chases and the three leads, who had seemed so clever at the beginning, quickly become inept at seemingly every turn.
The biggest problem is the Lasky character played by Tex Konig. Konig is a big bearded guy that resembles Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons who’s also a tow truck driver who wants to get his hands on the stolen money and chases the three all around the city, which leads to many car stunts and crashes. Some may enjoy the smash-ups, but it comes across as unimaginative filler by filmmakers that didn’t know how to end the story cleverly, so they came-up with a lot of mindless action in order to keep it going.
The infighting between Cattrall and Marchand seems unnecessarily added in as well. This animosity needed to be introduced right at the start in order to make it consistent with the plot and not just thrown-in later to add some conflict for the sake of conflict. You’d think too that if she really resented the guy she would’ve refused to go ahead with the robbery unless someone else took his place.
Having the story then end with the three going to France and then Italy just furthers dilutes the plot, which no longer resembles a robbery flick at all, but more of a jet setting one. While not perfect the remake, which came-out in 1990, fares better in just about all phases.
My Rating: 5 out of 10
Released: October 23, 1985
Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes
Not Rated
Director: Alexandre Arcady
Studio: Cinevideo
Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)
Scopophilia 