Dany Boon Movies
A multi-hyphenate who juggles roles as a playwright, screenwriter, director, actor, and casting person (often on a single production), Frenchman Dany Boon first gained international attention in the mid-2000s. He is best known for working in all of the said capacities on the breezy 2006 comedy Dream House, a kind of French variant on The Money Pit. In that film, Boon played Charles Boulin, a miserly repossessor of homes who makes the mistake of his life by purchasing a "fix it yourself" house in the country, as a gift for his wife. Boon also appeared onscreen in the pictures Merry Christmas (2005) and The Valet (2006). ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
An underground lair serves as the point of inspiration for this deeply whimsical fantasy comedy (with echoes of Jodorowsky's Rainbow Thief) from French cause célèbre Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie, The City of Lost Children). The locale is post-9/11 Europe. As arms dealers go head to head with one another in a series of violent skirmishes -- suggesting that an apocalyptic cataclysm may be lingering on the horizon -- the unfortunate Bazil (Dany Boon) still reels from the long-ago death of his father from a roadside bomb, an event that left him orphaned as a boy. Now employed in a low-paying job as a video-store clerk, and still trying to determine how he fits into the scheme of things, he gets hit by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting and promptly lands in the hospital. Upon release, he finds himself broke and unemployed. Hope soon crops up, however, in the form of Placard (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an ex-convict living in a scrap dump with a motley group of social outcasts -- all of whom welcome Bazil with warmth, compassion, and hospitality. Sure of his place for the first time in his life, Bazil joins forces with them to turn the dump into a lovely underground home, filled to the rafters with extraordinary inventions and sculptures. Soon after, the possibility of revenge against the munitions manufacturers responsible for Bazil's dad's death presents itself. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dany Boon, André Dussollier, (more)
- 2009
This zany, French-language fish-out-of-water comedy concerns a married couple, Hugo (Dany Boon) and Ariane (Sophie Marceau), who attempt to escape from the doldrums of nuptial banality by exchanging professional lives. He takes up his wife's career as a door-to-door jewelry salesman, and she assumes control of a building rental company - leading to a predictably endless series of outrageous complications. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sophie Marceau, Dany Boon, (more)
Recalling such prior successes as The Big Chill, Peter's Friends, and Return of the Secaucus 7, director Danièle Thompson's seriocomedy A Change of Plans follows a group of four French couples who converge in an apartment over the course of one lengthy summer's eve and spend the time chatting about life, personal goals, relationships, and sex. The said event unfurls during the perennial "Fête de la Musique" in the City of Lights. Attendees include the shark-like divorce attorney who owns the apartment, ML (Karin Viard), and her out-of-work husband, Piotr (Dany Boon); slick, unctuous attorney Lucas (Christopher Thompson) and his slightly stuck-up homemaker wife, Sarah (Emmanuelle Seigner); gynecologist Melanie (Marina Fois) and her oncologist husband, Alain (Patrick Bruel); and ML's sister, Juliette (Marina Hands), and her much older boyfriend, Erwann (Patrick Chesnais). As the night unfurls, it becomes readily apparent that none of the partners are happy and that virtually all have cheated or are planning on cheating on each other, which turns the film into an extended meditation on dissatisfaction and infidelity among the Parisian upper crust. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Karin Viard, Dany Boon, (more)
Jacques-Remy Girerd, acclaimed director of La Prophetie des Grenouilles, returns to write and direct this animated fantasy adventure following a young girl as she encounters a strange creature who teaches her about a sacred tree that is essential to all life on the planet. Young Mia lives on an island that is currently being transformed into a lavish resort by an unscrupulous real-estate developer. Her father, Pedro, is one of the laborers charged with constructing the resort, though lately the project has been beset by a series of mysterious problems. Those problems become rather serious when Pedro winds up buried in a tunnel after a massive landslide, and Mia races through the jungle to aid in the rescue mission. Along the way, Mia encounters the Migou, a race of curious identical creatures that can take any form they please. The Migou protect a tree that is crucial to the future of all living creatures on Earth, and that tree is in danger due to the development that Mia's father has been working on. In order to protect the tree, the Migou have been disrupting the development. When word of the landslide reaches the developer responsible for the project, he travels to the island with his son, Alden, determined to dispense with any obstacles that impede further progress on the resort. But Alden resents everything that his father stands for, and upon meeting Mia he vows to help rescue Pedro and protect the sacred tree -- the same tree that his father has vowed to chop down at all costs, an act that will undoubtedly usher in a dark era of death and decay. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Garance Lagraa, Charlie Girerd, (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, Salon de Provence. 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 (by pretending that he is handicapped) fail, and when the ruse is discovered, he ends up being punished with a forced relocation to Bergues, a village in Northern France that lies stuck between Belgium and the English Channel. In this area, the indigenes speak a language known as Picard - an amalgam of French, Flemish and Latin - and Philippe essentially perceives the region as the "Siberia of France." With misery in his heart, he dons extreme winter clothing and trudges off to his new post, saying goodbye to Julie and their son, who opt to stay behind. To make matters worse, not long after arriving in Bergues, Philippe nearly runs over a man while driving home drunk -- who turns out to be one of his new colleagues at the post office, But Philippe eventually finds to his surprise that he enjoys life in Bergues, and begins to love the community and its people, even growing infatuated with Annabelle (Anne Marivin), a beautiful letter carrier. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
French farce master Francis Veber (The Dinner Game) combines slapstick laughs with rapid-fire dialogue as he tells the tale of a Parisian valet unwittingly drawn into the affairs of a wealthy industrialist. François Pignon (Gad Elmaleh) is a simple valet employed by a posh Paris restaurant. Blissfully unaware of the paparazzi stalking powerful businessman Pierre Levasseur (Daniel Auteuil) and his stunning mistress, Elena (Alice Taglioni), the innocent passerby François wanders haphazardly into the frame. Realizing that the common man in the photograph may be Levasseur's only hope of avoiding a nasty divorce from his wife, Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), Pierre's quick-thinking lawyer (Richard Berry) arranges for François to live with Elena in order to mislead the tabloids. Having just been dumped by childhood sweetheart Emilie (Virginie Ledoyen), François accepts the proposal, in the hopes he can win her back through jealousy. But Pierre's jealousy flares, Elena grows frustrated with her new digs, and Christine might know more than she's letting on. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gad Elmaleh, Alice Taglioni, (more)
A businessman tries to belatedly learn the fine art of friendship in this comedy from French filmmaker Patrice Leconte. François (Daniel Auteuil) is an antique dealer who runs an upscale shop with his business partner, Catherine (Julie Gayet). François is a gently ruthless trader who will do nearly anything to make a deal, and when Catherine throws him a birthday party, someone points out that all the guests are business associates, not personal friends. While François protests that he does indeed have friends, Catherine calls him on it and makes him a deal -- if he can produce his best friend within ten days, he'll be allowed to keep a valuable vase he recently found for the shop, but if not, the vase will belong to her. François agrees to the challenge, but while going through his address book, he begins to realize he really doesn't have any especially close friends. Over the course of several days, François keeps running into Bruno (Dany Boon), a gregarious and friendly taxi driver, and while Bruno's personality rubs François the wrong way, he notices that the cabbie has a way of making (most) people like him. Eager to win his bet with Catherine, François recruits Bruno to give him a crash course in making friends and influencing people, hoping to find a buddy before his deadline. Mon Meilleur Ami (aka My Best Friend) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Auteuil, Dany Boon, (more)
- 2006
A simple cottage in the country becomes an increasingly difficult matter for cash-strapped husband in this French comedy. Charles Boulin (Dany Boon) works for a mortgage company, where he has the unenviable job of overseeing the repossession of homes when owners default on their loans and supervising the renegotiation of financing agreements. Charles's work has taught him to be frugal, and while he shares a comfortable and spacious apartment with his wife Anne (Michele Laroque) and their teenage daughter, their lives are short on luxury. Anne has become increasingly and vocally weary of Charles's reluctance to part with a franc, and he decides to surprise her for their anniversary with an unexpected extravagance -- a vacation home in the country. Charles is able to find a bargain with the help of realtor Jean-Pierre Draquart (Daniel Prevost), but he soon learns Jean-Pierre was far less than honest about the condition of the house, which stretches the boundaries of the phrase "fixer-upper." Charles hires a pair of handymen to get the place in order, but Mouloud Mami (Zinedine Soualem) and Donatello Pirelli (Laurent Gamelon) prove to massively incompetent, and Charles's "bargain" is becoming perilously expensive. Matters go from bad to worse when Charles loses his job and he has to find a way to pay the growing stack of bills on the house, all without spoiling the surprise for Anne. La Maison du Bonheur was the first directorial effort for actor Dany Boon. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dany Boon, Michèle Laroque, (more)
The year is 1914, and as World War I continues to rage across the European countryside, four individuals stuck on the front lines find themselves faced with the unthinkable in director Christian Carion's Academy Award-nominated account of the true-life wartime event that would offer hope for peace in mankind's darkest hour. When the war machines began rolling in the summer of 1914, the devastation that it waged upon German, British, and French troops was palpable. As the winter winds began to blow and the soldiers sat huddled in their trenches awaiting the generous Christmas care packages sent by the families, the sounds of warfare took a momentary backseat to the yearning for brotherhood among all of mankind. It is here that the fate of a French lieutenant, a Scottish priest, a German tenor, and a Danish soprano's lives were about to be changed forever. On Christmas Eve of that year, the lonely souls of the front lines abandoned their arms to reach out to their enemies on the battlefield and greet them with not anger or hostility, but with the simple, kindly gesture of a much needed cigarette or a treasured piece of chocolate, and to put their differences aside long enough to wish their brothers a sincere "Merry Christmas!" ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, (more)
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