Verdict
Summary
A great idea married with the right stars and the perfect filmmaker for the material, La Chevre from writer / director Francis Veber is pretty funny stuff with some classic moments, and its two lead actors are delightfully paired and worked well with each other.
Plot:
A rich man’s grown daughter vanishes in South America without a trace, and his advisor recommends he hire a man as unlucky as her to help a seasoned detective to find her.
Review:
An extremely unlucky young woman named Marie (Corynne Charbit) ventures to South America on her first solo vacation away from her wealthy father Alexandre (Michel Robin), but before she knows it, her terrible luck has her knocked unconscious and kidnapped by a low level thug named Arbal (Jorge Luke) who takes her deeper into South America with the intention of selling her to a high paying whorehouse some place where she’ll never be found or couldn’t possibly ever be rescued. Over a month passes and Alexandre has all but given up hope when a crazy plan is recommended to him by his advisor: Send a man just as unlucky as his daughter to South America alongside a seasoned detective, with the idea being that the horrendous luck of the unlucky duo might somehow collide by … luck! The seasoned detective is Campana (Gerard Depardieu) and he rolls his eyes at the notion of pretending that his unlucky companion Francois (Pierre Richard) is “in charge,” but by some kind of miracle, Francois consistently proves himself to not only be remarkably and hopelessly unlucky, but also incredibly fortunate because almost immediately he turns up leads where Campana failed. Soon, they’re on the right track, and they eventually find Arbal, who points them in the right direction, where fate and luck intersect.
A great idea married with the right stars and the perfect filmmaker for the material, La Chevre from writer / director Francis Veber is pretty funny stuff with some classic moments, and its two lead actors are delightfully paired and worked well with each other. Depardieu and Richard co-starred in several other films, each of which were remade in Hollywood, and this one was later remade in the almost scene-for-scene remake Pure Luck (which I prefer) with Danny Glover and Martin Short. Both films are excellent, but somehow Pure Luck has the edge over the original thanks to a slightly tighter pace and split-second comedic timing. Still, La Chevre is a solid piece of comic entertainment for everyone.
Kino Lorber’s new 2K restoration of this title looks and sounds better than the previous DVD release from over a decade ago, and it comes with a new audio commentary by three film historians, plus the trailer.
