Jean-Paul Belmondo is a French super-spy sent to Acapulco to find out why another agent was eaten by a shark in a telephone booth and to have sex with Jacqueline Bisset. No, wait, after about twenty minutes, it turns out that he's actually the writer of the potboilers in which he imagines himself, the people who annoy him in real life (particularly his publisher Vittorio Caprioli) and Jackie Bisset, the pretty student who lives upstairs, and whom he's much too shy to speak to. His life is pretty dire. He's divorced, has a son he can't talk to -- the boy is a teenager, so that's a given -- his apartment is a wreck because the plumber won't start until the electrician is done, and vice versa --and he's broke. Plus he has to write 83 pages by Monday because the next book is due.
It's another of the hit comedies that Belmondo made under the direction of Philippe de Broca, and it was originally written by Francis Veber. It was Veber's first year of movie credits, so when de Broca insisted on rewriting it himself, Veber took his name off the credits. It's telling and funny and Veber probably wrote the script based on his own experiences and daydreams. However, like the earlier de Broca-Belmondo collaborations, it seems to be erratically paced, uncertain from one moment to the next whether it's supposed to be camp, dramatic or a hip comedy, resulting in a bit of a mess. I've concluded that's de Broca's style.
It's another of the hit comedies that Belmondo made under the direction of Philippe de Broca, and it was originally written by Francis Veber. It was Veber's first year of movie credits, so when de Broca insisted on rewriting it himself, Veber took his name off the credits. It's telling and funny and Veber probably wrote the script based on his own experiences and daydreams. However, like the earlier de Broca-Belmondo collaborations, it seems to be erratically paced, uncertain from one moment to the next whether it's supposed to be camp, dramatic or a hip comedy, resulting in a bit of a mess. I've concluded that's de Broca's style.