Customer Reviews

Les Spécialistes

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Patrice Leconte's Les Specialistes was something of a turning pointing in the director's career, marking the moment when he abandoned his early crowd-pleasing comedies like Les Bronzes series for more ambitious works like Monsieur Hire, Tandem and The Hairdresser's Husband. This is firmly in the former camp, a buddy comedy in the Francis Veber mode but with fewer laughs that sees Gerard Lanvin's con with only a year left to serve finding himself handcuffed to and on the run with copkiller Bernard Giraudeau before teaming up with him to rob a mob-run casino. The twists are predictable but the heist is fairly ingenious, as are the preparations (casing the joint by pretending to be representatives of the insurance company is a neat trick). There are more than a few plot holes in the last half hour, but it keeps things moving briskly and is executed with some verve, although it might have paid more dividends to have taken a little bit more time at the beginning to fill out the very minimal characterization. As it stands, it's an undemanding summer audience picture that passes the time pleasantly enough without threatening to take up permanent residence in your memory. Curious to see Michel Blanc, M. Hire himself, among the screenwriters, though.

The French PAL DVD boasts a superb 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with optional English subtitles, although the extras - including a retrospective making of documentary and the original theatrical trailers - are not subtitled in English.