What a waste of my time!!!

That was an excellent one.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Pretty funny comedy, with an original plot and a De Funès in brilliant, manic top shape. He is ably supported by a fine group of comedic actors and actresses.As a movie, "Le petit baigneur" is perhaps a tad overlong, but there is much to enjoy. There is at least one superbly staged scene which has achieved cinematic immortality, and deservedly so : a scene in a Roman Catholic church, in which a priest notices the presence of a (very) rich man amidst the congregation. From the pulpit, the priest launches into an impassioned appeal for financial support. The church building, he notes, has become so neglected and so unsafe that it might as well be called "Our Lady of the Draughts". As the priest goes on and on about the dire condition of the building, it becomes clear that he is not exaggerating : the pulpit is pretty much disintegrating before our eyes. The sermon, as all good sermons should, ends with a bang...If this scene does not make you laugh your head off, contact the nearest doctor.

It took me years and years (and also some of my wife's persistence) to finally appreciate this movie for what it really is: an almost completely absurd, disjointed and surrealistic comedy, owing a lot to Jacques Tati ("Mon Oncle") and perhaps also to some Laurel & Hardy entries. I am thinking here of those Stan Laurel gags which defy logic, cinematographic or otherwise, which style I recognize here in scenes such as the hysterical one where De Funès "air-plays" some violin bit, which logically only the viewer can hear the in-sync sound of in the soundtrack, then accuses his wife of having actually played this music instead of him, since such things run in HER family… I think that viewers who cannot get or appreciate this kind of humor miss the point with this film because it relies a lot on such absurdity. And it is this absurdity which sets it apart uniquely in the De Funès filmography of this specific era.The direction and editing superbly serve this style of screenplay – see the scene where De Funès destroys his boats in a tantrum and how he interacts with objects which do not appear to be controlled by any off-camera prop men… just by the laws of gravity and the like! The boat chase at the end is also a nice, pleasantly rural/natural relief from the traditional car, plane or chopper chases in some of those other De Funès films, and I love how the gags with the wakes and waves are built and shot!

Unlike Paris tag-line, this movie is sometimes like the Titanic: it floats and sinks. In other words, the movie has very good moments but also very, long and dull parts: the long endless ships race at the beginning, the carnage of the tractor and the chase of the floating toilets. Outside those moments, the movie is really funny: Fufu is the typical Fufu, embodying a mean, cupid and rich boss. His talent is to find spots to have fun with such mean person and almost make him likable and human! Around him, he finds a strange read-head family. All this happens a long time ago in France and in the country, so you can have a nostalgic travel into time as well.

Louis de Funès is so funny. A lot of his movie would be plain bad if he wasn't the main actor. He's so good playing the avaricious industrial, just like in "Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob". "Le Petit baigneur" is not as good, though, as "Rabbi Jacob". It's funny but some scenes drag on and no (ex. the church who's crumbling apart or the tractor scene). But still a pleasant 90 minutes.Out of 100, I give it 72. That's good for ** out of ****.Seen at home, in Toronto, on November 25th, 2002.