LE GRAND RESTAURANT has two parts—the life in a grand restaurant, with some gentle satire about a classy Parisian restaurant patron and his rather undisciplined people, and a thriller spoof, with nice action sequences—some kind of a funny Hitchcock spoof—about the mysterious disappearance of a Hispanic president from the Parisian restaurant.
There is a beautiful shot of Saint—Cloud park. The anthem of the Hispanic country is cool. As with other similar Funès flicks, the pace looks pretty incoherent and lazy, with the rather static long intro of restaurant life, but after-wards it mightily gains strength and takes off in the 2nd part, the Hitchcock spoof (--daddy Funès would be—and with what brio—the imperiled Hitchcockian innocent, the vanishing of the Hispanic leader is conclusive, Funès has a sexy babe as a sidekick, there are conspirators, snowy landscapes, the conventional suspense--).
LE GRAND RESTAURANT might belong to a top 10 Funès flicks, of course below LA GRANDE VADROUILLE, RABBI JACOB, LES GRANDES VACANCES, LE CORNIAUD, LA ZIZANIE, LA SOUPE AUX CHOUX, LA TRAVERSÉE DE Paris, LE PETIT BAIGNEUR, SUR UN ARBRE PERCHÉ, TAXI, ROULOTTE ET CORRIDA—which would make LGR an 11th entry, and I didn't include the FANTÔMAS franchise (--already amply reviewed on this very site--) and AH! LES BELLES BACCHANTES—arguably not primarily Funès movies.
There is a beautiful shot of Saint—Cloud park. The anthem of the Hispanic country is cool. As with other similar Funès flicks, the pace looks pretty incoherent and lazy, with the rather static long intro of restaurant life, but after-wards it mightily gains strength and takes off in the 2nd part, the Hitchcock spoof (--daddy Funès would be—and with what brio—the imperiled Hitchcockian innocent, the vanishing of the Hispanic leader is conclusive, Funès has a sexy babe as a sidekick, there are conspirators, snowy landscapes, the conventional suspense--).
LE GRAND RESTAURANT might belong to a top 10 Funès flicks, of course below LA GRANDE VADROUILLE, RABBI JACOB, LES GRANDES VACANCES, LE CORNIAUD, LA ZIZANIE, LA SOUPE AUX CHOUX, LA TRAVERSÉE DE Paris, LE PETIT BAIGNEUR, SUR UN ARBRE PERCHÉ, TAXI, ROULOTTE ET CORRIDA—which would make LGR an 11th entry, and I didn't include the FANTÔMAS franchise (--already amply reviewed on this very site--) and AH! LES BELLES BACCHANTES—arguably not primarily Funès movies.