Camping 2 (2010)
Directed by Fabien Onteniente

Film Review

After the immense success of Camping (2006) it was only a matter of time before director Fabien Onteniente served up a second helping of summer holiday themed humour, assembling most of the cast of the first film and recycling nearly all of its gags.  If Camping were a Burger King-style banquet, Camping 2 would have to be its reheated leftovers, a tasty enough repast but ever so slightly stale and predictable (albeit without the diarrhetic consequences).  Gérard Lanvin, the star of the first film, was unwilling to make a return visit to Flots Bleus, so Richard Anconina steps into the breach, forming the unlikeliest buddy act in film history with Franck Dubosc, Alan Delon's camp alter ego from a parallel universe.

For some incomprehensible reason, the only thing that the French like more than going on holiday is to watch films about people going on holiday, so Camping 2, like its predecessor, was a massive box office hit.  (Camping attracted five million spectators; its sequel had to make do with four million).  The success of both films is hard to fathom - most of the jokes and comic situations appear to have been concocted by a class of unimaginative primary school children, and some look suspiciously as if they may have been stolen from a box of Christmas crackers.  ("Christophe Colomb a découvert l'Amérique, et moi j'ai des couverts en plastique..." - yep, that's the level of humour to expect.)   What narrative thread there is in Camping 2 is pretty well in the advanced and possibly terminal stages of anorexia, so what the film essentially boils down to is a series of grimly anodyne sketches.  The end result feels horribly like a compilation of mediocre holiday-themed movies.

Just about the only thing going for the film is its magnificent ensemble cast.  In addition to the aforementioned Anconina and Dubosc, we are served up generous portions of Mathilde Seigner, Claude Brasseur, Mylène Demongeot and Antoine Duléry - all making the most of the stale comedy titbits that Onteniente throws at their feet, lapping them up like starving wolves.  Camping 2 is by no means a masterpiece, but it is an enjoyable diversion if you have nothing better to do with your time and you take a sadistic pleasure in watching other people's holiday plans go horribly awry, which, let's face it, is just about all of us....

Film Synopsis

Jean-Pierre Savelli is in the midst of a mid-life crisis.  A forty-something insurance broker from Clermont-Ferrand, he is stunned when his wife Valérie tells him she wants to put their relationship on hold for a while.  Jean-Pierre has no choice but to change his holiday plans, and so he checks into Flots Bleus, a popular camp site near Arcachon, accompanied by his young daughter.  Jean-Pierre's hopes of passing a peaceful few days by the sea are ruined when the camp gigolo, Patrick Chirac, appears and tells him he is to be his buddy this year.  With Patrick's unwelcome help, Jean-Pierre will become a new man, whilst Patrick undergoes a transformation of his own...