The Dinner Game

Pity that another recent French movie had already reserved the title Sitcom: cut this baby down to a crisp thirty minutes or so, add a jaunty laugh-track, et voila! you'd have a reasonably funny pilot episode for a wacky show about an uptight business executive and his lovable, exasperating, goof-prone neighbor. Actually, even a phrase chosen entirely at random from a magazine ad or roadsign would likely be more apt than the current title, since the eponymous game--in which a group of friends take turns hosting a weekly repast to which each invites the biggest dolt that he can find, with an (unspecified) prize going to the winner--is never actually played onscreen. Having previously seen only one of Francis Veber's films, and that a limp American remake of a homegrown hit (Three Fugitives, one of very few comedies indeed to star the brilliant but rather humorless Nick Nolte), I was prepared to give him another chance; turns out that flat pacing, clumsy compositions and uninspired drollery are equally irritating in any language. Not recommended. (M. D'Angelo)