Nos amis les flics (2004)
Directed by Bob Swaim

Film Review

Seven years after he directed his award-winning 1998 film The Climb, the well-regarded American filmmaker Bob Swaim returned to helm, of all things, a commercial French film comedy, Nos amis les flics, adapted from a novel by Jay Cronley.  This marks an unexpected departure for the director who is still best known for the stylish 1980s detective thriller La Balance (1982) which won the Best Film César in 1983. In his first French film since L'Atlantide (1992), Swaim delivers an exuberant blend of comedy and action thriller which, whilst not wholly original, does supply a fare quota of laughs.

A comédie policière in the classic mould,  Nos amis les flics is by no mean the director's best film but it makes an entertaining romp, buoyed up by an exuberant cast and gag-laden script.  The film features Frédéric Diefenthal, better known as Émilien in Luc Besson's hugely popular Taxi series of films, and Daniel Auteuil, who makes a surprisingly sinister gangster villain (having played a virtually identical role in Serge Leroy's more serious thriller L'Indic (1983)).  Swaim had previously worked with Auteuil when the actor was virtually unknown in his debut feature, La Nuit de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1977).

Diefenthal and Auteuil make the most of this pretty formulaic comedy thriller, ably supported by a cast of comparable talents (Hippolyte Girardot, Pascal Elbé and Lorànt Deutsch are all eminently well suited to their roles).  With the help of co-screenwriter Mathieu Fabiani, Swaim successfully manages to combine all of the familiar thriller motifs with knockabout comic book antics, and the result is a feisty laugh-a-minute romp that can hardly fail to entertain.

Film Synopsis

Frédo is a small-time crook who has a knack of botching every job he turns his hand to.  With the help of his four loyal buddies, Frédo tackles his next hold-up with his usual ineptitude, with the result that he ends up on the wrong-side of the notoriously hard to please crime boss Toussaint.  Even though the operation is a complete disaster, Toussaint is prepared to offer Frédo and his chums one last chance to redeem themselves.  He gives them twenty-four hours to break into a modern art gallery and nab a valuable collection of paintings.

Assisted by his enterprising girlfriend Magali, Frédo is, as ever, confident of success, but what he doesn't know is that the gallery has been fitted with the most up-to-date alarm system known to man.  Inevitably, this latest criminal escapade turns into a total fiasco and in the ensuing confusion Frédo and his hopeless gang have to take a policeman hostage.  Their only chance of salvaging the situation is to pass themselves off as police officers, but in doing so this leads them into even deeper water...