It's not much that "Incontrolable" is a bad film, but it's a film begging us to laugh for a premise it carelessly cheats with.
Not to make a whole lecture on the intellectual processes of a comedy but "Incontrolable" misses an important rule: laughs don't depend much on funny actions but rather the reactions they cause. Remember the classic French comedy "The Visitors", the gags worked because everyone behaved normally, the sequel failed because characters became caricatures. Now, in "The 11 Commandments" (starring Michaël and his gang of immature friends) the pranks weren't all funny but the delight was to carefully observe reactions from normal people. When they started throwing ketchup at each other in a supermarket I didn't care but when the guards ran after them and slipped on the floor, it was basic and primitive but I laughed.
The point of comedy is to start with an absurd premise and extend its logic to the limit of hilarity, as long as the chain of events remains logical. When "Incontrolable" begins, we have a film that seems inhabited by normal people, George Pal is a wannabe writer whose constant rejections pushed him into a depressive and socially vegetative state. His girlfriend (Helene de Fougerolles) left him, his diet consists of kebab and junk food, fitting the lifestyle of the fallen celibate and misunderstood artist whose only chance is to linger on a dream of celebrity. It's all clichés but Youn plays his character as if he belonged to a drama and it's the right tone. I felt sorry for him, especially since I had my share of dreams crushed on the rocky ground of reality.
It takes a little time before fantasy makes its intrusion in George's life and when it does, I had so much time to relate to George that I almost wished the story had went for another direction, the result couldn't have been worse anyway. So George is suddenly possessed by a "voice". It belongs to the late Med Hondo who's for French audiences forever associated to Eddie Murphy and Shrek's donkey. The voice controls George's body, forcing him to accomplish the worst possible stuff against his will: it goes from folding his legs to throwing mustard on his buddy and it goes on and on. At that point, the film could have followed many interesting directions: maybe the voice could have pushed George to do things he didn't use to, to awaken his inner persona, to raise his voice... but it all falls apart after thirty minutes when you realize the premise is just an excuse to see Youn acting crazy.
It was fresh and original in "La Beuze" ("The Dope") because the film was a subtle parody of stoner comedies, it made sense in "The 11 Commandments" because the film was a French "Jackass" but here is Youn's first attempt at playing solo in a movie and it's a massive flop because of a lazy script full of cheap gags. The principal problem is that the film wraps its main character in a situation that itself should be a source of gags but then it goes the easy way by populating the film with characters so eccentric and caricatural they cancel out Youn's own weirdness. I wanted to believe that the film was going somewhere but when the vertically-challenged policeman popped in, I lost it. And when George kicked him as if he was Kyle with his brother Ike, I knew my time was being wasted and yet I wanted to see how far in the bad taste it would go.
I wasn't disappointed. Seriously, how desperate is a movie that indulges its script to kicking short people to generate a few laughs? The tone was not only bad but mean-spirited and even that could have been okay if the characters behaved reasonably and logically. In one scene, George lifts a woman's skirt, she screams, the next shot, she's in the same hotel lodge behaving as if nothing happened. How about a jealous husband? How about just a simple slap? In what world can a man do that and get away with it for the sake of laughs? I'm not polarizing my judgment on details because these are not details, the whole movie stops to rely on George's situation and becomes a pot of messiness where everything is thrown for the sake of a gag. The culmination is a funeral ceremony with African people and all of sudden, George starts singing a Gospel song and the crowd joins him in the rhythm, priest included. Is that a parody? The script didn't bother to come with an inspired speech before the song.
I guess it's useless to get on the whole story, the visit to the straight and stuck-up family lead by a conservative father (Thierry Lhermitte) had almost restored my hopes, I could even accept the crazy grandma but then the swimmig pool part reminded me that the film wasn't here to make any sense, it's as if the writer was possessed by a voice that whispered to him the kind of stuff a young audience would want. At one point, it went so downhill I was wondering if there wasn't a meta-referential statement about the decline of screenwriting, George wants to write a masterpiece but they only accept mediocre scripts with names on it. But that's what to mean? That Youn is a name and he can get away with the worst? If that was the intended move, I applauded the guts, but I'm not sure this is a movie Youn would proudly show in his resume.
Not to make a whole lecture on the intellectual processes of a comedy but "Incontrolable" misses an important rule: laughs don't depend much on funny actions but rather the reactions they cause. Remember the classic French comedy "The Visitors", the gags worked because everyone behaved normally, the sequel failed because characters became caricatures. Now, in "The 11 Commandments" (starring Michaël and his gang of immature friends) the pranks weren't all funny but the delight was to carefully observe reactions from normal people. When they started throwing ketchup at each other in a supermarket I didn't care but when the guards ran after them and slipped on the floor, it was basic and primitive but I laughed.
The point of comedy is to start with an absurd premise and extend its logic to the limit of hilarity, as long as the chain of events remains logical. When "Incontrolable" begins, we have a film that seems inhabited by normal people, George Pal is a wannabe writer whose constant rejections pushed him into a depressive and socially vegetative state. His girlfriend (Helene de Fougerolles) left him, his diet consists of kebab and junk food, fitting the lifestyle of the fallen celibate and misunderstood artist whose only chance is to linger on a dream of celebrity. It's all clichés but Youn plays his character as if he belonged to a drama and it's the right tone. I felt sorry for him, especially since I had my share of dreams crushed on the rocky ground of reality.
It takes a little time before fantasy makes its intrusion in George's life and when it does, I had so much time to relate to George that I almost wished the story had went for another direction, the result couldn't have been worse anyway. So George is suddenly possessed by a "voice". It belongs to the late Med Hondo who's for French audiences forever associated to Eddie Murphy and Shrek's donkey. The voice controls George's body, forcing him to accomplish the worst possible stuff against his will: it goes from folding his legs to throwing mustard on his buddy and it goes on and on. At that point, the film could have followed many interesting directions: maybe the voice could have pushed George to do things he didn't use to, to awaken his inner persona, to raise his voice... but it all falls apart after thirty minutes when you realize the premise is just an excuse to see Youn acting crazy.
It was fresh and original in "La Beuze" ("The Dope") because the film was a subtle parody of stoner comedies, it made sense in "The 11 Commandments" because the film was a French "Jackass" but here is Youn's first attempt at playing solo in a movie and it's a massive flop because of a lazy script full of cheap gags. The principal problem is that the film wraps its main character in a situation that itself should be a source of gags but then it goes the easy way by populating the film with characters so eccentric and caricatural they cancel out Youn's own weirdness. I wanted to believe that the film was going somewhere but when the vertically-challenged policeman popped in, I lost it. And when George kicked him as if he was Kyle with his brother Ike, I knew my time was being wasted and yet I wanted to see how far in the bad taste it would go.
I wasn't disappointed. Seriously, how desperate is a movie that indulges its script to kicking short people to generate a few laughs? The tone was not only bad but mean-spirited and even that could have been okay if the characters behaved reasonably and logically. In one scene, George lifts a woman's skirt, she screams, the next shot, she's in the same hotel lodge behaving as if nothing happened. How about a jealous husband? How about just a simple slap? In what world can a man do that and get away with it for the sake of laughs? I'm not polarizing my judgment on details because these are not details, the whole movie stops to rely on George's situation and becomes a pot of messiness where everything is thrown for the sake of a gag. The culmination is a funeral ceremony with African people and all of sudden, George starts singing a Gospel song and the crowd joins him in the rhythm, priest included. Is that a parody? The script didn't bother to come with an inspired speech before the song.
I guess it's useless to get on the whole story, the visit to the straight and stuck-up family lead by a conservative father (Thierry Lhermitte) had almost restored my hopes, I could even accept the crazy grandma but then the swimmig pool part reminded me that the film wasn't here to make any sense, it's as if the writer was possessed by a voice that whispered to him the kind of stuff a young audience would want. At one point, it went so downhill I was wondering if there wasn't a meta-referential statement about the decline of screenwriting, George wants to write a masterpiece but they only accept mediocre scripts with names on it. But that's what to mean? That Youn is a name and he can get away with the worst? If that was the intended move, I applauded the guts, but I'm not sure this is a movie Youn would proudly show in his resume.
