Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
The release of La Chèvre (1982) and its companion film Les Compères (1984) on DVD are highly welcome additions to the library of great French farces. These two films feature the same core trio – writer/director Francis Veber, and actors Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard. “La Chèvre” means “The Goat” and it refers to the practice of setting out a tethered goat as bait for killing a wolf.
Historical Background: The scriptwriter for this film was Francis Veber. He had a hand in several films that I consider among the funniest ever made. He co-wrote the script for The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) along with the director of that film Yves Robert. He was also a co-writer for La Cage aux Folles (1978). More recently, he wrote and directed The Dinner Game (1998) and The Closet (2001) – two hilarious French farces. His films have been remade with regularity by Hollywood, though the remakes never match the originals. The Tall Blond Man was remade as The Man with One Red Shoe (1985), La Chevre was remade as Pure Luck (with Martin Short and Danny Glover), and La Cage aux Folles as The Birdcage (1996).
The Story: The daughter, Marie Bens (Corynne Charbit), of a wealthy French businessman, Alexandre Bens (Michel Robin), disappears without a trace after an extraordinary series of bad luck events. A detective, Campana (Gérard Depardieu), has been unsuccessful in locating her after searching for six weeks. The psychologist who works for the company owned by Bens proposes a theory that might lead to the missing girl’s recovery and, out of desperation, Bens agrees. The psychologist explains that there is a man working in the accounting department of the company, named Francois Perrin (Pierre Richard), who shares Marie’s propensity for bad luck. The idea is to send him with Campana to Mexico where the girl was taken on the assumption that his bad luck will lead him inevitably along the same pathway of mishaps as Marie.
Campana is a hard-nosed, no-nonsense detective who believes in the value of careful, thorough detective work but not in luck or superstition. Campana is disgusted with the whole plan but is imposed upon to give the search another try with the hapless accountant. To add insult to injury, Campana is to go along as Perrin’s “assistant.”
What ensues is an hilarious series of mishaps and the priceless interaction between Depardieu and Richard. Perrin blunders his way toward “solving” the case, with Campana holding him together. Poor Campana suffers enormously having to put up with the near insufferable Perrin. In one memorable scene, Perrin is “kidnapped” by a gorilla, but the poor gorilla thereby acquires Perrin’s bad luck and soon the vines are snapping and the gorilla plummets to the ground. He disgustedly discards Perrin. In another brilliant episode, a bee has landed on Perrin’s face. Being exceptionally allergic to bees, Perrin must avoid disturbing the bee by smiling, but that doesn’t prevent Campana from cracking up hysterically.
Themes: The theme, of course, is the notion of “bad luck.” Though Campana doesn’t initially believe in “luck” – good or bad – by the end of the film, he takes every twitch or abnormal occurrence as a “sign” that some additional dreadful mishap is about to befall them. In a way, this film is a variation of the idea that “it takes a thief to catch a thief”: “it takes a goofy ill-starred bozo to find a goofy ill-starred bozo.”
Production Values: The pairing of Pierre Richard with Gerard Depardieu was casting genius, producing a partnership reminiscent of Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, or Hope and Crosby. Depardieu is the straight man of the team and Richard the hapless buffoon. Depardieu proves once again his extraordinary range as an actor. His mastery of dramatic roles is well known, but his propensity for farce is attested to as well in this film and in such other successes as Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978), Les Compères (1984), and The Closet (2001). Richard’s comic genius is incomparable, as he demonstrated in The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) and its sequel. The plot is tightly constructed and well-paced, with one imaginative gag following after another.
Bottom-Line: This is a true masterpiece of humor that you’ll want to watch over and over again. The DVD version contains only the trailer as an extra. La Chèvre is in French with English subtitles. It has a running time of 91 minutes.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from France:
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