Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
L'Emmerdeur (1973)
Director: Edouard Molinaro
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Good crazy comedies are few and far between these days. This one (disappointingly remade by Billy Wilder as Buddy Buddy in 1981) takes off nicely after about twenty minutes thanks to the solid presence of Ventura, an unwordy script, and a deceptively deadpan beginning. Ventura, a hired killer with one shooting already under his belt, takes a hotel room from which he plans a political assassination. Meanwhile, in the next room, the pain in the arse of the title attempts to hang himself. Ventura's calm exterior slowly shatters as the incompetent idiot slowly latches onto him; he ends up driving pregnant women to hospital, falling off ledges, getting drugged in a case of mistaken identity, looking for a garage distributing free plastic saints, and finally sharing a cell with the amiable idiot, the possessor of a mammoth persecution complex. Ventura's slow disintegration is a delight to watch, and Brel manages well at being extremely irritating.Author: CPe
Cast & crew
Director: Edouard Molinaro
Producer: Georges Dancigers
Cast: Lino Ventura, Jacques Brel, Caroline Cellier, Nino Castelnuovo, Jean-Pierre Darras full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 84 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now