French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s distinctive brand of zany and whimsical humour has won him a dedicated following, and fans of Delicatessen and Amélie should adore his new comedy thriller Micmacs.
Jeunet’s new movie boasts another cast of oddball characters (like Delicatessen) and (like Amélie) also features an unworldly protagonist who contrives a crazily elaborate scheme to hit back at the world’s bullies.
Played by Dany Boon, star of the monster French hit film Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks), the hero of Micmacs is a luckless orphan who has been left with a bullet lodged in his brain after getting caught in the cross-fire during a street shoot-out.
Unemployed, homeless and liable to drop dead at any moment, Boon’s Bazil gets taken in by a bunch of fellow misfits who live in a junkyard and possess some very bizarre talents – contortionist, human cannonball, bric-a-brac inventor, and so on.
These wacky skills come in handy when Bazil launches a campaign of revenge against the rival arms manufacturers (played by André Dussolier and Nicholas Marié) whom he blames for his misfortunes. The gang’s convoluted plot is enormous fun, making the film a worthy successor to such intricate-heist classics as Rififi. The passing swipes at the arms trade hit their target, too, and Boon’s hangdog charm holds all the foolery together.
On general release from 26th February.
