Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

People are voting emotionally.

A lot of fun.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

"Les Compères" marks the second partnership between Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard in a Francis Veber film and while less funny than "The Goat" and less emotional than "The Fugitives", I have a soft spot for this film and consider it my favorite of the trilogy.Maybe it's because it was my first Veber-Richard-Depardieu film, maybe it's this beautiful theme from the master Vladimir Cosma, a little tune that invites us to hug life and trust our spirit. Maybe because it features two actors at the top of their game: Depardieu is tough but some subtle moments betray a sensitive heart, while Richard is as clumsy and dreamy as ever, but not without some moral strength. I guess it's because the movie is all these things and even more, it told me something I could relate to, as a son, as a guy who wants his future son to be an alter-ego who wouldn't commit the same mistakes. The film, behind its comical undertone, is an endearing fable of two men embracing fatherhood like an exciting thrill that enriches one man's life.Pride and responsibility, love and authority … Veber finds the perfect dialog and the perfect actions to illustrate the many facets of fatherhood. After "The Toy", and "The Goat" which proved to be commercial successes, Veber's writing and directing talent shows again in "The Compères" starting with the premise. The film opens with a young teen-ager hitch-hiking toward the South of France with his girlfriend. They're young, good-looking, we'd take it dramatically if the music wasn't playing, conveying a false sense of free-spiritedness. As much as I love the music, and as I find the opening scene relevant, the combination of both creates an awkward feel, except if it's used to express a sensation of melancholy and uneasiness through the kid's act.The first scene reveals his identity, his name is Tristan, he's 16 and ran away from home. His mother (Anny Duperey) is very concerned and tries to collect information from police and from the girlfriend's father, without much result, the father, remarkably played by Michel Aumont (another regular from Veber films) is one of these decent guys who lacks the 'wild side' that can help sometimes, he's not a tough guy like Depardieu or a tortured soul like Richard, and seems to have the bad role of the 'average schmuck' in the beginning. The story begins when the mother has a strange idea; she meets Jean Lucas, Depardieu, one of her youth's love and tell him that Tristan is his son, so he would feel responsible enough to find him. Showing reluctance first, he finally accepts to help when given the opportunity of an investigation in Nice that would finally prove a politician's connection with the mob. He's already persona non grata in the town after an incendiary article against the local Mafioso.Meanwhile, the mother had the same idea with Pierre Richard, François Pignon, a depressive guy at the verge of committing suicide. Having found at least a meaning to his life, Pignon naturally accepts to help. The film's first comedic moments are driven by the way Lucas and Richard try to find similarities between them and Tristan, when given the photo, they can't hide their disappointment because he obviously doesn't look like them, but when their paths cross in Nice, you can feel their pride when they talk about Tristan. The qui pro quo is both poignant and funny; it's sad because we know they're not the fathers, and yet we accept the eventuality and funny because each one reads in Tristan's personality: where Lucas sees strength and rebellion, Pignon sees a dreamer, an idealistic soul. The two men are both different in personalities, but this time, they have something in common, and that's why I prefer this Depardieu and Richard duo..The cat-and-mouse between Tristan and his two fathers, spiced up by the involvement of the mob, lead to a series of comical situations from Pignon's outburst of laughs when he was told to cry, to Lucas teaching Pignon how to hit with a head. Finally, we discover Tristan, a kid who probably left his house, because he was tired of his father's lack of personality (like James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause") and ironically, he had such a hard time in the film that he needed not just one father, but two. When he cried over his break-up, Lucas told him to stop because he's a man, while Pignon let him go on, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong. A father doesn't necessarily give the right advice, but he gives the one he feels the righter.And while the two protagonists discover that being a father is a full-time job, Tristan realizes that if two men want to be his dad, than the real one is to be valued. It was a beautiful touch to have this final discussion between Tristan and his father, instead of the mother. All is well that ends well, and the film ends in an extraordinary poignancy when Tristan told each of Lucas and Pignon that they are the real father, Depardieu's reaction was extraordinarily. Why did he do this since they'll end up knowing the truth? I guess it's because he understood their happiness over the idea of being fathers, and if he could let them share this happiness even for a brief time. It's worth the coming disappointment.There's a bittersweet feeling in the ending but it's still the perfect note of optimism to conclude this beautiful story with the two smiling men and the kid holding them and asking them when Father's Day is, and then the beautiful music from Vladimir Cosma starts again. Indeed, "Les Compères" is one of these films to watch during Father's Day.

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.

If the ability to take the mundane and put topspin on it is not one of the criteria for genius perhaps it should be. Frank Loesser for example could and did write love songs about 1) a dripping tap and 2)a term used by professional gamblers to describe an easy mark and ANOTHER Frank, Francis Veber can take the most hackneyed plot and spin a glorious web out of it. One tends to lose count of the times a woman has told several men that they fathered her child - Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell, for one. Patrice Leconte put spin on Veber with his 50 - 50 Chance in which the child (Vanessa Paradis) seeks out her two possible fathers (Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo) only to involve them all in gang-wars. Here Veber brings together a pragmatic journalist and a milquetoast teacher and throws in everything except the kitchen sink. It never lets up on the thrills or the laffs and the playing is excellent. 9/10

I loved this movie when I saw it the first time a long time ago, and loved it again recently. Depardieu and Richard really are the Laurel and Hardy of french films, and this movie has a whistled song line that will not leave your head for years. A must see, especially if you saw the remake "Father's Day" which used the greatest comic talents in american film, and still didn't come close to the original.