Richard Bohringer Movies

This tepid actioner is taken from the popular comic strip by Francesco Altan. Ada (Marie Louisa) is the heir who promises her dying father she will look for the son he left behind in Africa 20 years before. Her scheming cousin Nancy (Charley Boorman) tries to get Ada disinherited. Ada runs into several colorful characters -- a homosexual couple who grow tomatoes and sell ivory, a Spanish Civil War veteran, and some nasty Nazis. She also contends with her pretentious Spanish maid Carmen (Victoria Abril) and the handsome native Bumbo (Isaach de Bankole). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The conflict in question is World War II; even though hostilities have all but ceased, the Germans and the French are not precisely reconciled. German soldier Richard Bohlinger, absent without leave, is befriended by a couple of pre-teen boys (Antoine and Julien Hubert, sons of director Jean-Louis Hubert). Despite the fact that they seem to have found a lasting peace, the adult world doesn't see things the boys' way, and Bohlinger is put to death. Apres le Guerre is the second felicitous collaboration between director Hubert and veteran character-actor Richard Bohlinger; the first was the popular Le Grand Chemin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directors Jean-Henri Roger and Juliet Berto begin this thriller with sequences on the contemporary politics of southern France and the infiltration of organized crime into real estate development there -- the crime bosses were torching forest tracts to make way for their development schemes in the early 1980s. In the fictionalized story, Paula Barretto (Juliet Berto) is caught in this underworld because her father was involved in the drug business, her brother is in the real estate scam, and her lover is an armed thief. Although she tries to get out of her corrupt and dangerous environment, it is not an easy task when even the police officers cannot be trusted, and the underworld has informants everywhere. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A college student discovers that no good deed goes unpunished in the black comedy Cinq Minutes de Detente (aka A Five Minute Break). Phillippe (Jose Garcia) is a pre-law student at what is described as "a French University in North America." One day during gym class, Phillippe lets a stranger who claims to have a heart condition borrow his shoes for a few minutes. The man then walks across a tar roof, leaving prints from Phillippe's shoes, and shoots a man who's been sleeping with his wife, before returning the shoes to Phillippe. Soon Phillippe's shoes are matched to the crime and he finds himself behind bars. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cult science-fiction author Philip K. Dick's novel of 1950s suburban California, Confessions of a Crap Artist, is adapted to present-day France in this quirky comedy-drama. Hippolyte Girardot portrays the title character, who is known by the nickname "Barjo" -- a moniker loosely translatable as "nutcase." After accidentally burning down his house during a scientific experiment, the extremely eccentric and socially naive Barjo is forced to move in with his twin sister, Fanfan, and her husband Charles, an aluminum factory owner. In his new home, Barjo continues his odd habits: cataloging old science magazines, testing bizarre inventions, and thinking about the end of the world. His main pursuit, however, is typing up a journal of "scientific" observations of his life, with a particular focus on the other people around him. Through this journal, Barjo chronicles Fanfan and Charles' increasingly frequent encounters with a younger couple and the marital tension that soon results -- eventually driving Charles into the hospital. Director Jerome Boivin (Baxter) uses Barjo's viewpoint to present an unusual perspective on marital and sexual difficulty, with his narration analyzing his sister's marriage fluctuating between the embarrassingly naive and the unexpectedly observant. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Despite being busy with his profession of soldiery, Brantome (Richard Bohringer) manages to find much more time for amorous dalliances with the ladies of the 16th-century French court than for battles. Unfortunately for him, his true love, Victoire (Isabella Rossellini), is beyond his reach most of the time. He more than compensates for this in the arms of others. Reviewers found little merit in this uninspired drama, except for the gorgeous period settings and costumes. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Set in the near future when a subterranean world is ruled over by a totalitarian psycho, this tame story about the macho hero Diesel (Gerard Klein) and the woman he saves (Agnes Soral) is too cliched to convince for long. When the woman, a prostitute, has to run for her life because she witnessed a murder, Diesel comes to her rescue, and a series of chases and confrontations follows. From the three gangsters after the woman, to the ruler of the city, the characters tend to be surface sketches and the situations predictable. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The diva of the title is a famous black opera singer (Wilhelmina Wiggins-Fernandez) who steadfastly refuses to be recorded. The singer is idolized by young French mail-carrier Jules (Frederic Andrei), who sneaks a tape recorder into the theater and records her performance. This is witnessed by a pair of Taiwanese criminals, who unlike Andrei wish to profit from the bootlegged recording. They begin to pursue the boy, as do a couple of home-grown hooligans who believe that Jules is in possession of some murder evidence. The serpentine plot leads to a warm friendship between Jules and the reclusive diva - and to a brilliantly photographed (by Philipe Rousselot) motorcycle chase through the subway tunnels of Paris. Diva marked the directorial debut of Jean-Jacques Beineix, whose obvious fondness for the more esoteric techniques of the Nouvelle Vague never impedes his willingness to simply entertain his audiences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With little dialogue, no specific storyline, and subject matter dealing with murder, hate, sex, and an erotic nightclub act, this film focuses on a performer named America (Catherine Jourdan) who goes "on the road" with her new lover Jimmy (Carlos Castañon), a thief. America is dodging a former lover, so life on the road does not look to be easy, and it is anything but virtuous. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In one of Coluche's earlier films, the late French comedian stars in this standard comedy by Claude Zidi as the inept police inspector, Michel Clement. The senior Clement was a spectacular policeman, and Michel finds it particularly difficult to try and walk in his father's footsteps without tripping. At the moment he is after Roger Morzini (Gerard Depardieu), a dangerous gangster who eventually kidnaps Marie-Anne Prossant (Dominique Lavanant). She is a journalist traveling with Michel as he tries to track down Morzini. Her objective was to get an interview with the gangster, and now she has more than she bargained for. Meanwhile, Michel tries to get his act together and rescue her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A short and strange storyline emboldens this thriller with sci-fi overtones by Didier Grousset. Albert (Michel Galabru) is an electronics genius who gets the ax from his company and then goes over the edge. At first he packs off to his attic, turns on the television, and opts for vegetating. But he gets a little irritated by what he sees on TV and is especially miffed at some inept announcers. So his solution is to invent a "ray gun" that can travel through the TV screen and the camera in the studios and kill the idiots, one at a time. A detective (Richard Bohringer) starts to figure out how the murders are happening and develops a scheme to eliminate the unknown, attic assassin. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Michel Gauché, a stunt double and trickster who is crazy in love with his former fiancee, work-mate, and fellow stunt performer Jane (Raquel Welch). She, however, is so angry with him for landing her in the hospital due to a badly performed stunt that she breaks off the engagement. Belmondo also plays Bruno Ferrari, the movie star he is doubling for, an effeminate homosexual who lusts after his stuntman. Because Jane is angry with Michel, she falls into the arms of a film producer, and arranges for Michel to re-do the same stunt over and over again endlessly. She also tries to woo Bruno the movie star and discovers that he is not interested in women. Michel tries hard to win her back, sometimes pretending to be the movie star, which confuses her to no end. Just as she is about to marry a dull aristocrat, Belmondo appears in an old gorilla outfit and abducts her from the aisles of the church. Belmondo was famous for doing all his own stunts, and he continued that tradition in this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide