Steve Martin steps into the shoes of bumbling French detective Jacques Clouseau in a loose remake of the 1964 Peter Sellers original.
When the French football coach (Jason Statham) is murdered and his priceless diamond ring, the Pink Panther, stolen, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kline) calls Clouseau in to investigate.
The main suspects include his team and colleagues, all of whom despise him (perhaps he made them watch the film), and his fiancée Xania (Beyonce Knowles) who recently learned that he had been cheating on her.
Cheating on Beyonce!?! Could they have come up with a more ludricous storyline?
They say:
Total Film: "Despite Martin's efforts, this is cruelly unfunny. And that's saying something for a gagfest painted with such broad brushstrokes."
Guardian: "During a public screening of this laughless francophobic comedy two people (20 per cent of the audience) laughed; one was Chinese, the other, whom I couldn't see, might have been an escaped hyena."
Empire: "We get a pummelling of one note slapstick gags, some hit, most miss. Add a miscast Dreyfus and you’re left with a movie whose good moments only highlight the barely okayness of everything else."
We say:
20th Century Fox refused to let any members of the British press see TPP before its release, presumably because they were terrified about what we would write.
In America the film's release date was also put back by six months when they realised it would be destroyed by the summer's blockbusters– most of which were pretty average themselves.
As it turns out, not letting us see it was probably a blessing in disguise as a combination of director Shawn "Just Married" Levy and Steve "Bringing Down the House 2" Martin looks like celluloid cyanide.
Daily Telegraph film critic Sukhdev Sandhu, who saw the film in America, sums it up: "Martin gives autopilots a bad name and Beyoncé has all the screen charisma and acting skills of a stuffed pillow.
The jokes are simple to the point of head bashing stupidity: Clouseau spends ages trying to get his tongue around the word "hamburger"; marches into a record booth that he thinks is soundproofed in order to let off a fart; and, by some turn of events far too contrived to relate, finds himself stomping around holding his freshly electrocuted testicles.
If that makes you laugh then "The Pink Panther" is made for you.
CAST
Steve Martin, Beyonce Knowles, Kevin Kline, Jean Reno,
Emily Mortimer, Jason Statham, Clive Owen
DIRECTOR
John Hillcoat
TIME
104 mins
POSTED...
Tue 21 Mar 2006 at 8:42pm
