Boudu

This is a remake of Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932), which Paul Mazursky remade in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).

I'm not sure why it had to be done again (a universal dearth of ideas possibly), but it's not a bad piece of fluff, an enjoyable waste of time. Its only real problem is its length: it just runs out steam. Jugnot and Depardieu are fun to watch for a while, but you just know their mutual fulminations and frustrations are going to wane; sure enough, it happens, at about the 75-minute mark. After that, it just goes downhill, and there just isn't any fun anymore.

Depardieu offers us yet another self-mocking caricature of Gerard Depardieu. I like him a lot -- it's somehow endearing to see this universally known actor fearlessly showing his bulbous belly and nude derriere to a worldwide audience. It's somehow very European, or maybe just French. I've always loved Catherine Frot, and her ditzy performance adds a lot to the silliness.

Good comedies are hard to find. One reason is that they can rarely sustain the comedy and the 'plot' convincingly over a feature length. This is the fate of this latest incarnation of Boudu.