Danny Boon

  • Lolo (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) As a fluently bilingual Francophone, I have a privileged perch from which to consider Julie Delpy’s career — not only from the American side, but also the French one. Lolo, for instance, has Delpy as writer-director-star, and goes straight for high-concept comedy rather than the more subtle material elsewhere in her filmography. Featuring leading French comedian Danny Boon as a divorced man who meets and romances a divorced woman (Delpy), this film soon takes a dark turn when her possessive adult son does his best to sabotage their relationship. Anyone familiar with Boon’s other films could be forgiven for thinking that he wrote or directed it, so closely does it follow several of his other films. But what sets Lolo apart from many other comedies is how deeply it becomes stuck in the son’s dangerous possessiveness, and how it can’t get out of the pit it digs for itself — by the time the young man is revealed to be an utter psychopath, there’s no definitive ending, no way out of this bad situation… and the comedy of the film is seriously threatened. It doesn’t help that Lolo goes for maximum humiliation comedy whenever it can, scarcely leaving any dignity to Boon’s character as he’s manipulated into increasingly more embarrassing (eventually dangerous and criminal) behaviour. It does suggest a fundamental problem at the film’s core — a lack of understanding of how far you can go with comedy and still have it remain a comedy. Directorially, the film is fine without being remarkable — the tone is a lot of mainstream comedy without much in terms of impact. In other words, Lolo works but not completely, and it has enough weak moments and bone-headed decisions to confound. I do like Delpy a lot as a performer (and this is one area in this film where her work is irreproachable), but as a writer-director, Lolo doesn’t strike me as particularly successful.

  • Supercondriaque (2014)

    Supercondriaque (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2021) Writer-director Danny Boon has been establishing himself as one of France’s leading film comedy powerhouses since the 2008 breakout hit Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis. Supercondriaque is one of the six films he has led as a filmmaker since then—all broad, big-budgeted (by French standards) comedies aiming at a large public and featuring Boon in leading roles. They’re not that different from the mainstream of Hollywood comedies—clear high-concept premise, formula-tested development, big finale, safe themes and fun for all. In Supercondriaque, we have Boon as an exceptionally hypochondriac man pushed by his exasperated doctor to take back control of his life and get over his imaginary ailments. The big push, after a rather lengthy forty-some minutes of throat-clearing, comes when his uncanny resemblance to a foreign freedom fighter leads to outrageous mistaken-identity romantic and political adventures designed to push his limits. You can guess that it ends on a very funny sequence in which he laughs at unimaginable filth—it’s rather funny to see him bond with a rat. The pacing is generally breezy once it gets going, although Boon and co-star Kad Merad can’t quite avoid some mugging for the camera. Two-time Boon collaborator Alice Pol (she also shows up in the subsequent Raid Dingue) is cute in a less overly comic role, with some good supporting work from a variety of other actors. Supercondriaque is not refined filmmaking, but it’s handled with competence and energy. The gags in the film’s last half get desperate at times (there’s an entire stream of jokes about Victor Hugo’s characters that gets to be a bit much) but that’s in keeping with the increasing frantic nature of the film. For Anglophone audiences looking in tackling recent French comedy, this is not a bad choice—the essential Frenchness of the result isn’t too pronounced and Boon’s lunacy translates well.

  • Murder Mystery (2019)

    Murder Mystery (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2020) If you believe in the documented theory that Adam Sandler picks projects partially in order to get paid holidays in picturesque locations with a bunch of his friends, then Murder Mystery becomes almost inevitable. The premise is familiar enough, as a couple of ordinary Americans become embroiled in an escalating series of murders among the European jet-set. It’s executed with the very, very broad humour of Sandler’s other films, and Jennifer Anniston should be used to the proceedings given that this is her second pairing with him. The result is a decent comedy, although there’s a sense that it’s dragged down by the personas of its lead actors: While the plot outline of Murder Mystery is solid enough, the film seems contractually obliged to sabotage itself in order to let Sandler or Anniston showboat. It could have been a cleverer film (the twists and turns of the finale almost make sense) but that’s really not what Murder Mystery is interested in, as it moves from a yacht to the picturesque French Riviera. It’s no real surprise if the film does better with its supporting characters: Terence Stamp makes a brief impression, whereas Luke Evans and Gemma Atherton do better. It’s interesting to see noteworthy French comedian Danny Boon take a role as a crusty French policeman in an American film –Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel finally have a successor! The result, to be clear, is still reasonably entertaining… even if it coasts on the familiar appeal of a classical murder mystery with ordinary people tackling the case. It could have been worse, but somehow, I keep judging Murder Mystery on the ways it could have been much better, starting with different lead actors.

  • Raid dingue (2016)

    Raid dingue (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2020) The big-budget segment of French cinema is equally capable of matching Hollywood when it comes to crowd-pleasing crime comedies, and that’s the spirit in which Raid dingue begs to be seen. It’s not meant to be anything but an action comedy, with a heavy emphasis on the comedy. Written and directed by well-known French filmmaker Danny Boon, this is a film about a well-meaning but clumsy woman trying for France’s elite RAID squad (the equivalent of the FBI’s SWAT). There is a criminal gang to provide a true antagonist, a rather annoying sexist subplot to provide romantic tension, and a few montages to show the protagonist going from zero to hero. Alice Pol has a great blend of comic timing and candid attractiveness as the heroine, while Boon gets a plum role for himself as the love interest. The structure of the film will be intensely familiar to anyone who’s seen a handful of Hollywood comedies, but it’s the journey that counts. Here, the results are uneven: While Raid dingue would have been strong enough on its own with a well-meaning heroine, insisting on sexism distracts from the heroine’s own merits. Her clumsiness also seems overdone to the point of being hardly forgivable when it leads to injuries and national peril. Some of this lack of script polish can be blamed on slightly different cultural expectations, but it does damage the film on the way to its conclusion. Still, Raid dingue is an easy watch and a good showcase for Pol. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of mainstream filmmaking in French.