Gilles Lellouche Movies

This wild and raunchy, adult-oriented animation remained in the Top Ten at the French box office for weeks after its premiere. Recalling the creations of Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic), it actually originated as a Canal Plus television series in the early 2000s that in turn evolved into a comic book before morphing into this feature. In a shoddy, run-down neighborhood at the edge of an unnamed European metropolis, two lowlifes, Joe Hustleton (rapper IZM) and Tony Pepperoni (Vincent Cassel), devise a couple of wild schemes to reel in enough money to land a vacation to sunny Santo Rico island. Each man adopts a unique approach: Joe decides to sell five kilos of cannabis that he picked up on credit from slimeball dealer Zoran (Gilles Lellouche), but if he doesn't pay the principal back in a reasonable amount of time, he's had it; Joe opts for a more straitlaced approach (so to speak) by simultaneously building a sauna at the palatial home of rich judge Nomercy (François Levantal) and guarding the man's house during his vacation -- a job that leads to enormous complications given Joe's serious yen for Nomercy's sexy daughter Clemence (Diane Kruger of Inglourious Basterds). Meanwhile, a number of unsavory supporting characters pop up, including a couple of porno directors, a possessive girlfriend, and two hoods who must hide out in a swimming pool when their plans to get to Santo Rico fall through. The French title, incidentally, is a slang word for blacks with only mildly derogatory connotations. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A legendary outlaw unwittingly finds himself face to face with his nemesis in this comedy-drama from France, inspired by a true story. In 1976, Albert Spaggiari (Jean-Paul Rouve) made headlines all across Europe when he led a robbery of the Societe Generale band in Paris that saw him and his partners walk away with $40 million in cash. While Spaggiari was captured by police, he jumped to freedom from a third floor window of the courthouse where he was being tried, and fled to South America, where he successfully avoided extradition to France. Vincent Gourmand (Gilles Lellouche) is a police detective who is obsessed with bringing Spaggiari to justice, and he eventually tracks the thief to a small village in South America, where he lives with his lover Julia (Alice Taglioni). While Gourmand can't arrest Spaggiari, he can find out how the thief pulled off the robbery of a lifetime, and posing as a reporter he asks Spaggiari to sit for an interview. Spaggiari agrees, but instead of the villainous master criminal he expected, Gourmand finds an aging man living in the shadow of a fading legend and struggling to make ends meet on a shrinking fortune that's been ransacked by his partners in crime. Leading man Jean-Paul Rouve also directed Sans Arme, Hi Haine, Ni Violence; it was his first feature-length project behind the camera. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This tough and gritty French-language crime drama represents the premier installment in a two-part series of features on the life and doings of notorious Gallic hood Jacques Mesrine (1936-79). Mesrine is played, in both installments, by actor Vincent Cassel (Sa Majeste Minor), who reportedly underwent massive weight gain and weight loss to convincingly portray the volatile Mesrine at various periods of his life. Director Jean-François Richet begins in 1979, with Mesrine's uncommonly violent death, whereby he and a beautiful young woman are suddenly (and fatally) ambushed by Parisian police not far from Mesrine's place of birth; Richet then flashes back to the Franco-Algerian War of the late 1950s and a brutal interrogation undergone by Mesrine. Following a military discharge, Mesrine returns to his parents' suburb of Clichy, where his dad has arranged a pathetic job for him in a lacemaking factory. Never one to take humiliation lying down, Jacques perceives burglary, larceny and racketeering as much-superior options and decides to pursue a life of crime via a "business partnership" with childhood buddy Paul (Gilles Lellouche), who works for mobster Guido (Gerard Depardieu). As the years pass, Jacques works his way up through the ranks of the underworld; via Paul, he also meets and falls hard for two women: Pigalle streetwalker Sarah (Florence Thomassin), and Sofia (Elena Anaya), a beautiful Spanish woman with whom he cohabitates after doing time in a French prison. Following a brief and unsuccessful attempt to "go straight," Jacques re-connects with Guido, then finds it necessary to escape from France to Canada with his new mistress Jeanne (Cecile de France). Unfortunately, another prison sentence is waiting for him there, replete with brutal solitary confinement, but the possibility of a daring escape beckons. Part two of the Mesrine saga, entitled Mesrine: L'Énnemi public no. 1 for French release, followed immediately after and picks up where this installment wraps. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A down-and-out sleight-of-hand artist tries to pull off the trick of a lifetime by keeping a decaying cabaret in business in this comedy-drama with music from director Thierry Klifa. Gabriel Stern (Claude Brasseur) has spent over four decades running the Blue Parrot, a Parisian nightclub where he regularly appeared in a drag act as "Gabriella." One evening, a weary Gabriel asks his friend and confidante Nicky (Gerard Lanvin), a magician who regularly appears on the Blue Parrot's stage, to finish closing up the club so he can go home. Nicky agrees, and the next morning he gets the sad news that Gabriel died in his sleep. Gabriel's son and daughter, both in their thirties, come to Paris to handle the funeral details -- Nino (Michael Cohen), a gay accountant who brings along his younger lover (Pierrick Lilliu), and Marianne (Geraldine Pailhas), who edits a well-known magazine for women. Also on hand are Simone (Miou-Miou), Gabriel's ex-wife, Marianne's mother and Nicky's former co-star; Alice (Catherine Deneuve), another of Gabiriel's exes who's also Nino's mom; and a number of the regular performers at the club. When Gabriel's will is read, to the surprise of many the ownership of the Blue Parrot is handed over to Nino and Marianne; the two have no interest in running a nightspot and announce the place is up for sale. Nicky wants to keep the Blue Parrot open, but doesn't have the money to buy the club, even though Gabriel's ghost frequently visits him, imploring him to find a way to prevent it from closing. Le Heros de la Famille (aka Family Hero also stars Emmanuelle Beart and Valerie Lemercier as members of the club's stable of regular performers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Remi Bezancon's romantic comedy My Life in the Air stars Vincent Elbaz as Yann, a young man whose mother died during a plane flight while giving birth to him. These events traumatized him to the point that is unable to fly, even though the airline would allow him unlimited free access to any of the flights. Now he works as a flight simulator instructor, although he never actually leaves the ground, and he must sort out his feelings when an old girlfriend returns to confuse issues with his current gal pal. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Actor Guillaume Canet, best known to American audiences for his work in The Beach, makes his directorial debut with the dark comedy, Mon idole. Canet also stars in the film as Bastien, an ambitious young man working as an assistant to Philippe Letzger (Philippe Lefebvre, who co-wrote the script with Canet and Eric Naggar) the overbearing host of a raucous, exploitative Jerry Springer-like game/talk show called It's Tissue Time! in which the goal is to make the contestants cry. Bastien warms up the audience and runs errands for Letzger, in addition to coming up with helpful ideas for the network, which Letzger takes credit for. Bastien puts up with Letzger’s abuse because he wants to work with his idol, the show's impossibly suave producer, Jean-Louis Broustal (François Berléand). To Bastien’s surprise, Broustal stops ignoring him one day, and starts taking an interest in the young man’s ideas. Bastien lives with his girlfriend, Fabienne (Clotilde Courau), who’s tired of hearing about how wonderful Broustal is. And Bastien is torn when he realizes that the pretty blond he’s been admiring around the office is Broustal’s young wife, Clara (Diane Kruger). Things take a strange turn for Bastien when Broustal invites him out for a night on the town that quickly turns into a weekend at the couple’s remote country estate. Clara quickly gets Bastien alone and beds him, and Broustal doesn’t seem to mind. Broustal makes a lot of promises about Bastien’s future in television, but what does the couple want from him? As the weekend progresses, their motives seem increasingly bizarre and even sinister. Mon idole was nominated for César Awards for Best First Film and for Berléand’s performance. It was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide