Guy Lecluyse Movies
- 2009
Recalling such prior efforts as the American farce Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Gallic writer-director Olivier Baroux's coarse comedy Safari travels into the heart of darkest Africa, where a group of motley and eccentric travelers follow a shifty tour guide, gambler Richard Dacier (Kad Merad) on a journey through the jungle. En route, they encounter an array of nefarious types, including arms dealers, porn addicts, and misogynistic natives who debase their wives. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kad Merad, Lionel Abelanski, (more)
- 2008
A cop on the edge of an emotional collapse is on the trail of a violent madman in this edgy crime thriller from French writer and director Olivier Marchal. Charles Subra (Philippe Nahon) is a habitual criminal who, after serving twenty-five years in prison on a sentence for rape and murder, is up for parole. While Charles insists he's seen the error of his ways and wants to repay society for his crimes, Justine (Olivia Bonamy) isn't buying it -- Charles murdered her mother and father while she watched, and she writes him a long letter explaining in detail why she wants him to stay behind bars. Charles is granted parole anyway, but it soon becomes clear that the clever criminal fooled the prison authorities -- he still has a taste for murder and wants to kill again, starting with Justine. Louis Schneider (Daniel Auteuil) is a police detective who meets with Justine and helps protect her from the madman on the loose, but he's not the best man for the job these days -- shattered by the sudden death of his wife and child and haunted by a serious of brutal murders he's been investigating, Louis's psyche is in tatters and he's only marginally more stable than the criminal he's trying to catch. Director and screenwriter Olivier Marchal was inspired to make MR 73 by his own experiences as a police officer in the early Eighties; the title is police slang for the Manurhin 73, a standard handgun for French beat cops in the Seventies and Eighties. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Olivia Bonamy, (more)
- 2008
A man born and raised on France's Southern coast is exiled to the Northern territories in this comedy from actor, director and screenwriter Dany Boon. Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad) helps run the post office in a picturesque small town in the South of France. Philippe's wife Julie (Zoe Felix) has been down in the dumps, and he thinks one way to lift her spirits would be to relocate to the more glamorous surroundings of the Cote d'Azur. However, Philippe's attempts to finagle a transfer fail, and he ends up demoted -- he's sent to Bergues, a village in Northern France stuck between Belgium and England. Philippe is appalled at the news, and matters only get worse when he has to learn the local dialect, a strange bouillabaisse of French, Flemish and Latin dialects. Julie opts to stay behind, and as Philippe drowns his sorrows in beer on his first night in town, he nearly runs over a man while driving home drunk -- who turns out to be one of his new colleagues at the post office, Antoine Bailleul (Dany Boon). But Philippe finds to his surprise that he enjoys life in Bergues, and he becomes infatuated with Annabelle (Anne Marivin), a beautiful letter carrier. Philippe is pondering just what he should do about his feelings for Annabelle when he gets word from Julie that she's decided to join him in the unfashionable North. Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis was a major box office success in France, grossing over $80 million in little more than a month in theaters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Euro screen legends Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil star, respectively, as French cops Denis Klein and Leo Vrinks, in Olivier Marchal's tough-as-steel policier 36 Quai des Orfevres. The story unravels at the titular Parisian police headquarters, where Klein (who heads up the department's anti-crime unit) and Vrinks (who manages the "search and action squad") go head-to-head -- competing with one another not only to succeed their boss, but to be the first to solve an ongoing series of security-van robberies. Ultimately, the men resort to sabotaging one another, and thus set the stage for an ongoing series of twists, turns, reversals, and betrayals. Valeria Golino and Catherine Marchal co-star; Olivier Marchal co-authored the script with Dominique Loiseau, Julien Rappeneau, and Franck Mancuso. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 2002
Gangsters is the directorial debut of veteran writer and actor Olivier Marchal, who spent ten years as a police detective in France. Frank (Richard Anconina) is captured and interrogated by the police, who want him to reveal the location of a vaulable briefcase. Flashbacks tell the story of the missing briefcase, in which Frank and Little Claude (Jean-Louis Tribes) are present during a violent burglary in a nightclub. Anne Parillaud (from La Femme Nikita) plays the fearless prostitute Nina. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Anconina, Anne Parillaud, (more)
