Reviews

Mon Meilleur Ami | My Best Friend

Yet another mismatched-buddy pairing

By MICHAEL ATKINSON | July 3, 2007

2.0 Stars

MON MEILLEUR AMI|MY BEST FRIEND: A best friend in 10 days? ...Never.

The opening-night entry of this year’s Boston French Film Festival, Patrice Leconte’s tetchy and grimly unamusing little comedy positions Daniel Auteuil, in yet another mismatched-buddy pairing, as an unlikable antiques dealer who’s compelled — in a bizarre bet instigated by a tableful of despicable but ostensible friends — to find a “best friend” in 10 days or give up the ancient Greek vase on which he spent too much of his gallery’s cash. The set-up is so labored and unconvincing that it hardly matters when our rodentine hero latches onto Dany Boon’s gregarious trivia buff/cab driver and is instructed in the ways of basic sociability. Boon is meant to be likable, and he is (though one can already see the Adam Sandler remake coming at us like a flung turd), but Leconte, returning to his lackluster ’70s-’80s period of tone-deaf farce, focuses like a West Hollywood executive on penny-ante moralizing.

Power hungry?
The most powerful people on Beacon Hill want to stop the gay-marriage ban, but don’t have the votes
Dreamland
More like Snoozeland
February 23, 2006
Thursday
More

Topics: Reviews , Patrice Leconte , Culture and Lifestyle , Relationships , More

Comments

Add a Comment

Election - Democratic National Conference

ARTICLES BY MICHAEL ATKINSON

KINO PRAVDA | August 26, 2008
‘Envisioning Russia’ at the MFA

DARKNESS VISIBLE | May 19, 2008
The HFA’s ‘Unseen Noir’ unveils America’s post-war gloom

FILM ON THE FRINGE | March 25, 2008
Jewishfilm.2008 explores the frontiers

HELL BOY | March 18, 2008
Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz at the ICA

PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR | March 12, 2008
Manoel de Oliveira at the HFA

See all articles by: MICHAEL ATKINSON

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

PHOTOS: NEIL DIAMOND AT FENWAY PARK
August 23, 2008 at Fenway Park, Boston, MA

PHOTOS: REGENERATION TOUR
Belinda Carlisle, the Human League, ABC, and Flock of Seagualls, Bank of America Pavilion, August 20, 2008

PHOTOS: NORTH KOREA'S SURREAL MASS GAMES
While everyone else watches the Olympics, Asia's weirdest sporting event transpires in the world's most secretive country

PHOTOS: DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 2008
Protest-to-podium coverage from Denver. Updated daily.

PHOTOS: RADIOHEAD IN BOSTON
August 14, 2008 at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA

BEIJING STING
Exposed: A top-secret government memorandum, obtained this past week by the Phoenix, gives the games away

BEIJING STING
Exposed: A top-secret government memorandum, obtained this past week by the Phoenix, gives the games away

SCOUT'S HONOR
Burn Notice ’s honest con job

HOME INVASION
Mishegas meets metaphor in Fabuloso

PHOTOS: NEIL DIAMOND AT FENWAY PARK
August 23, 2008 at Fenway Park, Boston, MA

PHOTOS: THE '68 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
Images from the exhibit "The Whole World Was Watching" at Panopticon Gallery

HOT TOPICS

Daniel Day-Lewis , Jack Black , Michael Clayton , Michael Haneke , Osama bin Laden , Tom McCarthy , Paul Thomas Anderson , Michael Jackson , Paris Hilton , Tommy Lee Jones

Reviews

Mon Meilleur Ami | My Best Friend

Stealing America

The play's the thing

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

What We Do Is Secret

Elegy