Roland Neunreuther Movies

At $23 million, this sequel cost three times as much as the earlier Les Visiteurs (1993), France's second largest postwar success (with 13.6 million tickets sold). The follow-up features a voiceover summary of the first film while pages flip in an illuminated book. In the 1993 film, a magic potion launched 11th-century knight Godefroy de Montmirail (Jean Reno) and his loyal vassal Jacquouille la Fripouille (Christian Clavier) spinning through time to the modern-day French countryside where they found the Montmirail chateau converted into an upscale resort run by Jacquart (also played by Clavier), an innkeeper soon transported to the Middle Ages. The sequel opens with a prologue showing Jacquouille and Ginette (Marie-Anne Chazel) creating confusion in a contemporary supermarket. A stolen relic left in the 20th Century must be returned to the past, or Godefroy's marriage will be cursed. Jacquart faces his own problems -- wolves, angry peasants, torture, and burning at the stake. All the key characters flit back and forth between the 1990s and the past. In the present day, playboy Hubert de Montmirail (Reno) has been missing for 15 years, and his shrewish wife Cora (Claire Nadeau) finds the missing relic. When Godefroy turns up, he's naturally assumed to be the missing Hubert. Les Visiteurs II had the biggest opening day in French film history, breaking the record set by Men in Black and generating Gallic guffaws galore in a country where few films ever receive the sequel treatment. English language title The Corridors of Time: The Visitors II. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

If such a thing as gentle humor can be wrung from murderous misogyny, this all-star comedy is the embodiment of it. The basic point of the film seems to be this: unattached men long to live with women, and once they do, they long to live without them. In this story, Paul (Thierry Lhermitte) is upset about his wife's having left him. He can't stop thinking about her, and eventually decides that he'd be much happier if he knew she was dead. Then, he thinks, he could put an end to his obsessing. His uncle, a judge (Phillippe Noiret), knows of a man who killed his wife more or less on purpose, and got away with it. Paul and his uncle get together with the lucky killer, Vincent (Richard Bohringer), and, on their way to visit Paul's wife, discuss how Vincent managed to kill his wife and get away with it. Along the way, the aggravations women bring to men are pretty thoroughly (and humorously) hashed over. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Stéphane is a linguist whose work in obscure and ancient languages has permitted him to become the only person who knows one of the languages. When all sorts of electronic equipment begin serving as conduits for messages in that very language, messages which are instructing him personally, to avert forthcoming disasters, he understandably has some difficulty believing that they are anything other than hallucinations. However, the mysterious voice soon proves its reality, and this otherwise ordinary academic is unwillingly embarked on a quest to save the world. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this farcical spoof of spy thrillers, set in France, few obvious or old jokes are left untold, especially if they are at the expense of overweight women, the handicapped, or dogs who don't know where to defecate. The story itself concerns the unsanctioned efforts of a covert unit to gather evidence about illegal arms shipments with the unwitting help of an embassy employee. When it appears that she is about to ruin everything by getting married on a weekend which is important to their operation, project director La Squale (the Shark) (Jean Reno) directs that someone must seduce the woman's fiance so that she'll call off the weekend. Little does he know that the woman chosen is his own girlfriend -- the only one of his agents who is sufficiently thin to be alluring. One thing after another leads to the near failure of the operation -- including the efforts of the repentant fiance (Christian Clavier) to win his girlfriend back. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Old Gun (Le Vieux Fusil) stars Philippe Noiret as an aging, embittered French physician. During the occupation, Noiret loses his wife and daughter to Nazi bullets. He vows to personally kill every one of the Germans responsible (along with a few who weren't) in order to assuage his grief. Romy Schneider and Jean Bousse costar in this heart rending character study. Philippe Noiret was justifiably honored with the French Cesar Award for his towering performance in Old Gun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide