Genre: Comedy
Director: Francis Veber
Starring: Richard Berry, Patrick Timsit, Pascal Elbé, Virginie Ledoyen
Running Time: 86 minutes (plus trailers)
Francis Veber has directed some of Frances most internationally recognised comedies including The Dinner Game and The Closest. The success of his films can generally be traced back to their relative simplicity. Similar in many ways to American studio comedies, they combine inoffensive but amusing dialogue as well as overt slapstick and visual humour in order to be accessible to a wide audience, including non-French speakers. His films often centre around two characters: an idiotic or simple minded loner (usually named Francois Pignon) who despite his good intention manages to make a mess of every situation, as well as a ‘straight man’, who frustration at Pignon’s incompetence serves to heighten the comedy.
In A Pain in the Ass (French title: L'Emmerdeur), the Pignon character is a newspaper photographer on the verge of suicide after his wife Louise walked out on him. His foil is a hitman with the moniker Jean Milan, who has been hired to take out a witness in a high profile political case. Unfortunately for him, he just happens to check into the hotel room next door to Pignon, and after accidentally getting involved in Pignon botched suicide attempt, Milan finds himself having to juggle his own plans as well as assisting Pignon’s harebrained scheme to win back his wife. Throw in a nervous hotel porter, Louise’s arrogant lover and a group of SWAT police in charge of protecting the witness and you should have a recipe for hilarity. Unfortunately, A Pain in the Ass just isn’t funny.
Or is it? When I saw this film, there were about thirty people in the theatre, and twenty nine of them laughed uproariously throughout. I laughed once. I can say with absolute certainty that I found A Pain in the Ass to be quite literally a giant pain in the ass, and within the first ten minutes I was praying for the end credits. However, I cannot deny that everyone else seemed to have a great time. These weren’t just little giggles, these were big belly laughs that rang out in the dark and made me wonder about the IQ of my fellow movie goers. Or at least it did for a while. But as the film stretched on, and the laughs continued (including from members of my own family), I started to wonder if maybe I was the problem. I don’t believe I have a particularly classy or highbrow sense of humour (I still laugh at Billy Madison and Bill and Ted) and yet the constant barrage of jokes about people falling over or thinking someone else is gay didn’t even make me smile. I wanted to laugh. I had after all gone into this film expecting to have a great time. And yet all A Pain in the Ass elicited from me was rolled eyeballs, constant yawning and one solitary snicker.
The jokes are obvious. Anyone could go into this film and predict exactly what was going to happen. People fall out windows, they crash their cars. They trip over things and get caught in embarrassing situations. More than anything, it reminded me of Johnny English. Now that was a movie where you saw every gag coming before it happened. The difference? I liked Johnny English. Admittedly I haven’t seen it in a few years, but I recall it being really really funny. So why didn’t I like A Pain in the Ass? The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that maybe it was funny, and that if I had seen it on a different day I would laughed my ass off. But it’s not as though I was in a bad mood when I saw it, so the answer eludes me. Like I said, I did laugh once, at a sequence in which Pignon is hanging off the side of a building. When Milan attempts to help him, he too falls out the window. This joke was no cleverer than anything else in the film, but for whatever reason I found it amusing.
I think I've said all I have to say. I realise that this hasn’t been a particularly strong review, because rather than explore the film I’ve simply talked about my confusion at my own negative reaction to it. Unfortunately as a critic all I can do is tell you my opinion. Sure, everyone else laughed, but I hated A Pain in the Ass with a fiery passion. I didn’t care about anything on screen and I didn’t think it was even remotely amusing. Frankly, I just wanted it to end.
A Pain in the Ass is playing at select cinemas in Melbourne including The Rivoli and The Nova
Director: Francis Veber
Starring: Richard Berry, Patrick Timsit, Pascal Elbé, Virginie Ledoyen
Running Time: 86 minutes (plus trailers)
Francis Veber has directed some of Frances most internationally recognised comedies including The Dinner Game and The Closest. The success of his films can generally be traced back to their relative simplicity. Similar in many ways to American studio comedies, they combine inoffensive but amusing dialogue as well as overt slapstick and visual humour in order to be accessible to a wide audience, including non-French speakers. His films often centre around two characters: an idiotic or simple minded loner (usually named Francois Pignon) who despite his good intention manages to make a mess of every situation, as well as a ‘straight man’, who frustration at Pignon’s incompetence serves to heighten the comedy.In A Pain in the Ass (French title: L'Emmerdeur), the Pignon character is a newspaper photographer on the verge of suicide after his wife Louise walked out on him. His foil is a hitman with the moniker Jean Milan, who has been hired to take out a witness in a high profile political case. Unfortunately for him, he just happens to check into the hotel room next door to Pignon, and after accidentally getting involved in Pignon botched suicide attempt, Milan finds himself having to juggle his own plans as well as assisting Pignon’s harebrained scheme to win back his wife. Throw in a nervous hotel porter, Louise’s arrogant lover and a group of SWAT police in charge of protecting the witness and you should have a recipe for hilarity. Unfortunately, A Pain in the Ass just isn’t funny.
Or is it? When I saw this film, there were about thirty people in the theatre, and twenty nine of them laughed uproariously throughout. I laughed once. I can say with absolute certainty that I found A Pain in the Ass to be quite literally a giant pain in the ass, and within the first ten minutes I was praying for the end credits. However, I cannot deny that everyone else seemed to have a great time. These weren’t just little giggles, these were big belly laughs that rang out in the dark and made me wonder about the IQ of my fellow movie goers. Or at least it did for a while. But as the film stretched on, and the laughs continued (including from members of my own family), I started to wonder if maybe I was the problem. I don’t believe I have a particularly classy or highbrow sense of humour (I still laugh at Billy Madison and Bill and Ted) and yet the constant barrage of jokes about people falling over or thinking someone else is gay didn’t even make me smile. I wanted to laugh. I had after all gone into this film expecting to have a great time. And yet all A Pain in the Ass elicited from me was rolled eyeballs, constant yawning and one solitary snicker.
The jokes are obvious. Anyone could go into this film and predict exactly what was going to happen. People fall out windows, they crash their cars. They trip over things and get caught in embarrassing situations. More than anything, it reminded me of Johnny English. Now that was a movie where you saw every gag coming before it happened. The difference? I liked Johnny English. Admittedly I haven’t seen it in a few years, but I recall it being really really funny. So why didn’t I like A Pain in the Ass? The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that maybe it was funny, and that if I had seen it on a different day I would laughed my ass off. But it’s not as though I was in a bad mood when I saw it, so the answer eludes me. Like I said, I did laugh once, at a sequence in which Pignon is hanging off the side of a building. When Milan attempts to help him, he too falls out the window. This joke was no cleverer than anything else in the film, but for whatever reason I found it amusing.
I think I've said all I have to say. I realise that this hasn’t been a particularly strong review, because rather than explore the film I’ve simply talked about my confusion at my own negative reaction to it. Unfortunately as a critic all I can do is tell you my opinion. Sure, everyone else laughed, but I hated A Pain in the Ass with a fiery passion. I didn’t care about anything on screen and I didn’t think it was even remotely amusing. Frankly, I just wanted it to end.A Pain in the Ass is playing at select cinemas in Melbourne including The Rivoli and The Nova
