Excellent but underrated film

The acting in this movie is really good.

The acting in this movie is really good.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Well, this is the middle movie of this comedy trilogy assembling Veber, Gérard & Pierre and this is one for which i don't feel very connected : sure there is a funny moments with the 3 dads story lines but at it's the last one i watched, it's like i saw the same movie 3 times : indeed, it's always the same plot : find a missing child, 2 ways of investigation : punchy with Gérard and goofy with Pierre… Here we don't have the exoticism of Mexico but French Riviera : however as in the future Fugitifs in Bordeaux, this is not the bling-bling Nice (except Negresco hotel) but rather its slums… So it's a movie that smells good the great 80s in France but not as good as the 2 others...

In 1981, Francis Veber directed a smash hit film, "La Chèvre" (THE GOAT). While I will admit that the film at times was awfully silly and a bit dippy, there was something about the film that starred Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu that struck a chord with the audience. Their interplay was great and so once again Veber paired the two in a new film where they play different characters, though they act pretty much like they did in the previous film. However, this time, the film, though amiable, lacked much of the magic of the original film. Now I am not saying that this is a bad film--but it just doesn't work nearly as well as "La Chèvre"."Les Compères" begins with a mother and father going to the police to get help in finding their runaway son. However, the police cannot guarantee quick action and the mother decides to use an evil scheme to elicit the help of two old lovers. She meets separately with Richard and Depardieu to tell them that the boy is actually their long-lost son that they didn't know even existed. This exceptionally cruel device works, however, and both set out to find their 'son'. However, they don't know that each is searching for a 17 year-old boy who can't be their son because he's only 15--and was fathered by the lady's husband.Like "La Chèvre", Richard is a bumbler and makes a mess of most everything. Depardieu is tough and a man of action. Together, true to formula, they help each other to grow. They also manage to find the boy AND uncover a mob conspiracy. While the way the teen reacts to them and the mob plot offer a few surprises, the overall film offers none. As I said, it's formulaic all the way and ends pretty much like you'd expect. While none of this is bad, it's also a tad bland and inoffensive--the sort of film that is more of a time-passer than anything else. Fortunately, Francis Veber went on to do many wonderful and more satisfying films. And if "Les Compères" is among the least of his work, then that is a pretty good endorsement for seeing more of his films (such as THE VALET, MY BEST FRIEND and THE CLOSET).By the way, this film's plot is very similar to the Gina Lollabrigida film BUONA SERA MRS. CAMPBELL--a film that is about as good and worth seeing as "Les Compères".

I wish my memories for LES COMPERES was sharper - but I saw it in Manhattan at the Paris movie house in midtown back in 1983, so I have to struggle a little. I do know this - the plot for FATHER'S DAY (which I just reviewed) is different in several ways, weakening the film's construction a little, but giving an outlet to the the two male characters that the French film left in the air.Basically LES COMPERES is about how young Tristan Martin (Stephane Bieron) has an argument with his parents about his girlfriend, and flees with her. The mother Christine (Anny Duparen) goes and finds two previous boy-friends, Jean Lucas (Gerald Depardieu) who is a journalist, and Francis Pignon (Pierre Richard), who is an overly emotional teacher. She tells each that Tristan is their son - not the biological son of her husband Paul (Michel Aumont). And both (seperately) go after the boy - and soon find each other as a friend but rival in the issue of the boy's actual father.LES COMPERES kept the activities of the film's comedy between Depardieu and Richard, and the confused Tristan. This is fine (the script was good and tight here). However, it missed out on some wonderful comic moments that appear in FATHER'S DAY, involving the father of the boy Bob Andrews (Bruce Greenwood). He hears his wife (Nastassje Kinski) on the phone with Billy Crystal about the issue of their son's parentage, and decides to go and find the boy himself. In the process he has a series of disasters involving a porto-potty at a gas station, and a clumsy (if good natured) truck driver (Dennis Burkley), that are very funny. But nothing like that occurred in the French original.One thing that does get overly developed in the American remake (but was more effective, as it was used less frequently, in the French original) was "beaning". In FATHER'S DAY, Crystal demonstrates fairly early his ability to bean opponents on the head to knock them out or disable them. He repeats it several times. But Depardieu does not use it as frequently, and when he turns up at the end to use it against a particularly obnoxious and threatening individual he comes out looking quite effective as we are not expecting it from him.SPOILER COMING UP:At the end of both films, the boy privately tells both of his would-be fathers that each is his biological father, but should not say so to the other one (so as not to upset him). But in FATHER'S DAY, Crystal (a lawyer, not a journalist like Depardieu) confesses to his long suffering wife Julia Louis-Dreyfus that he could tell the boy was lying - he could tell from frequent experience in court. Also, unlike Richard, Williams has a potential romance in his future. As Crystal and Dreyfus decide to go ahead with their plans for a family, the characters in the American version have some kind of hope in their futures. But in the French version, the two would-be daddies end up secretly reassured of their own biological parenting of the boy. The French version is more organically complete as it is, but I do like the hope that is in store for the American counterparts at the end of the American version.

*Les SPOILERS* Christine, after her son Tristan has ran away from Paris, asks for the help of two old ex-boyfriends, neurotic ex-teacher Jacques and tough journalist Jean-Lucas, to find him, and she tells to both of them that he is their son, while her husband, the man that unwittingly caused Tristan's flight.The chase begins, or better, the chases, because Jean-Lucas is preparing an article about a Casino owner's affiliations with the Mafia, and said Casino owner understandably doesn't want the article to be published...This is the original version of 'Father's Day', and is arguably better, especially with French Comedy Genius Francis Veber at the helm and Pierre Richard vs Gérard Depardieu (one of the best living French actors) in full play, this movie is a real treat to watch.Favourite scene; when Tristan is fighting against his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend and in the meanwhile Jacques and Jean-Lucas are having a fight of their own, and the crowd turns from the two boys fighting to the two men fighting! Les Compères: 7,5/10