Best movie of this year hands down!

People are voting emotionally.

best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Most Comedies even French comedies can be slapstick but not this one. It's truly believable as Francois Pignon, a valet at an upscale restaurant near the Eiffel Tower, is caught in a picture on Parisian streets with Daniel Auteil's character and the character's mistress, Elena. The casting is first rate as Daniel Auteil plays the businessman and adulterer. He is married to Kristin Scott Thomas's character. She's delightfully charming, shrewish, and quite clever to outsmart him or anybody else. She wants to catch his affair in order to win in the divorce. Auteil and Scott-Thomas are truly believable in their roles. Kristin Scott Thomas, a British actress, is truly perfect as a French socialite wife. The cast who plays Francois, Elena, and the supporting players are all first rate, believable, and definitely casted to perfection. The writing is also done well as if not to be outlandish or over the top. The story is pretty hard to believe but you believe it. It's a fun film to watch and entertaining for every minute of it.

The featherweight French comedy, "The Valet," hearkens back to those more halcyon days when frenetic pacing and farcical misunderstandings often made for comic gold. And while "The Valet" may not be exactly golden (it's barely gold-plated, if you want to know the absolute truth), it's still a moderately diverting trifle - provided you don't ask more of it than it can reasonably deliver, that is.The protagonist is Francois Pignon (Gad Elmaleh), a struggling, average-looking chap, who works as a parking valet at a high-end restaurant located right across the street from the Eiffel Tower. Francois' simple life is turned upside down when, through a fluke of fate, he is hired to play the lover of a French supermodel (Alice Taglioni) whose long-running affair with a married billionaire CEO (Daniel Auteuil) has recently come to light in the Paris tabloids. This leads to a great deal of complications for all involved, including Francois' pretty young love interest (Virginie Ledoyen) who, unfortunately, has not been let in on the ruse.For all its undeniable Gallic charms, "The Valet," written and directed by Francis Veber, is probably funnier in concept than it is in execution. It delivers its two best jokes right upfront - a wonderfully inventive visual gag that introduces the main character, and a clever routine about a doctor who is more sick than his patients - but that's all within the first ten minutes, and the movie never reaches those comic heights again. Still, if you're partial to a sitcom-level scenario in which people run around from one contrived set-up and telegraphed sight-gag to the next - all against colorful Parisienne backdrops - then this might well be the movie for you. If not, you might want to skip it altogether and seek out something more to your liking.

Dany Boon (Joyeux Noël) got a César nomination for supporting actor as the best friend of a really lucky guy.Daniel Auteuil (Caché, Girl on the Bridge) is hilarious as the billionaire caught with his supermodel mistress, France's Actress of the year for 2006, Alice Taglioni (The Pink Panther). François (Gad Elmaleh) just happened to be in the published picture, so they paid him to fake a relationship with Taglioni to fool Auteuil's wife, Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient, Gosford Park). She's no dummy, knows he's lying, and that's when the fun really begins.Of course, our man François is really in love with Émilie (Virginie Ledoyen - 8 Women, Saint Ange).It is all good fun and credit for that is not only due to a fine cast, but to writer/director Francis Veber (La Cage aux folles), who put together some great lines and a funny situation.Please do not let them make a stupid American remake. It won't possibly be as good as the French version.

Francis Veber has probably seen better days as a filmmaker- he directed the Dinner Game, much appreciated by those who've seen it, and he wrote the original La Cage Aux Foux script- but it's never a bummer to see him pour out his contrived romantic comedies. It's the kind of movie where there is not a whole lot to really praise to the heavens as being truly sharp and original wit and style with the characters and plot, but at the same time I can't think of anything that is necessarily horrible either. Like a breezy enough sitcom with pleasant enough cast members, the Valet makes its presence known early on enough (following the opening titles, which are quite impressive), and it moves along pretty quickly. Maybe too quick, possibly, as it could have more of an impact with further developed characters. The one who gets the most real investment of full dimension is the wealthy adulterous husband, played by Daniel Auteil, who previously played Francois Pignon in another Veber movie, only this time played by the average shmo-like Gad Elmaleh.It would be a little pointless going through the big hoops in describing the plot as it is stemming from a fairly obvious, if clever-obvious, premise (the Village Voice review is basically a whole description of the review, in much more amusing respect than I could muster). But it should be noted that all of the little twists that occur without there being a whole lot to connect with the characters aside from schadenfreude with the rich guy (and his wife instigating it, played by Kristin Scott Thomas in surprising 100% French), because the ones who are the everyday folk are kept a little too simply: girl needs money for her father, but doesn't want to get involved with the man who loves her so. We're told they're kindergarten friends, but there is very little else to go on as to how Francois's connection to her could be so strong, aside for plot convenience. It's like one of those goofy and simple cooked-up scenarios, with devious and rational-minded characters in equal measure, that could pop up in a less savvy programmer that pops up on weekday mornings on Turner Classic Movies.Which is, in an off-handed way, a slight compliment I hope. It's about as light as comedy can get, with the roughest touches of absurdity being the doctor father being treated by his own patients, a woman who's head is caught on fire while her waiter is taken by the sight of the supermodel and valet, and the very last scene, which has a comeuppance that is cheesy, but very funny, and a surprise considering the lack of transvestites in the film. I liked The Valet, but it's nothing to get worked up about to leave the house and rush to the theater to see.