Les Deux crocodiles (1987)
Directed by Joël Séria

Film Review

Les Deux crocodiles is typical of the kind of film that writer-director Joël Séria is renowned for - a provocative and quirky comedy that takes us on some zany, off-kilter excursions, with a few near-porn encounters along the way.  This time, Séria is well-served by a superb comedy duo formed by Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Carmet, but their efforts are somewhat undermined by a rambling script peppered with nutty ideas that never seem to reach maturity.  It's a feast that has all the right ingredients but just hasn't had time to cook properly. 

An odd mix of road movie and bromance (which ends, bizarrely, with Marielle and Carmet holding hands and walking off into the sunset), Les Deux crocodiles fails to live up to its promise and is marred not only by Séria's half-hearted direction but also by its drab production design and some hideous '80s synth music.  It's not a patch on the director's earlier Les Galettes de Pont-Aven (1975), in which Marielle also starred (in arguably his most famous role).  This was Séria's last film for the cinema until his return in 2010 with Mumu.  In between, he kept busy by working for French television on television series and movies, including the popular Nestor Burma series.

Film Synopsis

Émile Rivereau, a modest ironmonger from Saumur in western France, travels to Brittany for his holidays and to visit his aged mother, who has moved into a retirement home in Quimper.  On the train, he meets René Boutancard, a former crook who now works as a taxi driver and runs a seedy striptease nightclub.  Unable to find a place to stay in the town, he ends up asking René to take him in.  One of René's former victims, Charlot, decides to take revenge against him.  Believing that Émile is his accomplice, he kidnaps his mother...