The Corsican File

I heard from this funny movie when I spent my summer holidays 2005 on the isle of Corsica with my family. Fortunately I had the opportunity watching it on the ferry leaving the isle. I have to say that it's long time ago I didn't see such a great film. It shows many parodies about Corsicas political and cultural life mixed with very nice setting places of this beautiful isle. Christian Clavier and Jean Reno did a very solid job and were very cool. If you want to spend a relaxed evening then don't miss it. If you enjoyed it I highly recommend to see another great fun movie starring Jean Reno in "Tais-Toi". You won=t regret it. My vote with my wife is 6 out of 10.

I watched this film recently on a French public TV station.

In the hope I'll see something in the vein of "Opération Corned Beef", one of my favourite French comedies which also stars Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, I got disappointed by this one. The dialogues between this duo aren't as memorable and performed not as snappy as in the aforementioned film.

Sure the Corsican landscapes and towns captured by this film are beautiful, it's not by coincidence people call Corsica "L'île de beauté" (The island of beauty) and the main actress is very nice to look at, but I think something like the comics album "Astérix en Corse" incapsulates better the Corsican mentality than this film even if there are a lot of parallels between these two.

In the end I have to admit I never read the comics which inspired "L'enquête corse", maybe I would have enjoyed the film more if I did.

This film is about a Parisian detective hunting for a certain influential mob leader in Corsica.

after watching the film, my impression is that a lot of stuff is lost in translation. The film gives me a happy and uplifting impression, along with the sunny and beautiful scenery of Corsica. The budget is good and the sets are beautifully done. Caterina Murino is so beautiful, she steals many of the scenes. As for the plot, sometimes it does not make sense. In one scene, Christian Clavier walks up a church tower, but the next scene he gets out of a police car. What happened there? I have the feeling that certain scenes are meant to be funny, but I fail to grasp it completely. An example is that Christian Clavier endures the choirs at 2 in the morning. It is a fun film to watch, but I think it would have been better if I understood French or their culture.

I watched this movie last night and loved it.

From the opening scene where the caricatured bumbling mainland police are foiled by the caricatured independantist locals, I was laughing my head off.

Remi the private detective from Paris is hired on a commercial matter to go to Corsica to find Ange Leoni, the independantist who happens to be on the run from police.

Many farcical scenes ensue as Remi comes up against a closed culture while Ange plays cat and mouse with the police. Meanwhile rival gangs of independantists and rival judicial organisations all vie with each other for influence and control over events with mostly ridiculous results.

I've never been to Corsica, but if you've ever read "Asterix in Corsica", you will understand what all the jokes are about, although I doubt this movie would be anywhere near as much fun with subtitles.

The deliberately thick patois at the start is only there for colour - the rest of the movie is in lightly southern-accented French.

It's quite simple: It's almost impossible for foreigners to understand what's going on in this movie. You have to understand that this movie is based on a famous french comic-book. Therefore the jokes are exaggerated and - without any exception - all characters fit into well-known French/Corsican clichés. It's definitely not a big movie - but for Frenchmen (or people living in France, like me) it's at least very amusing. The Corsican landscape is pretty well filmed. Some of the scenes are indeed very stupid and without any logic - but please remember the comic book background. Reno and Clavier are o.k., but the real sensation is the incredibly beautiful leading lady (Ange Leoni's sister) - she is just worth looking this picture.