Who's in It: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen
The Basics: Take It's a Wonderful Life, and set it in a population-deficient, black-and-white Paris. Make the suicidal guy a very short, very mopey Moroccan on the run from gambling debts and his equally suicidal angel, a nine-foot-tall supermodel candidate. Then put loopy, populist "Big Film" director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) in charge. What you get is either (a) a charming little fairy tale that you've already seen before in other forms, (b) a 90-minute middle-finger salute to whoever excluded him from Paris, Je T'Aime, (c) a giantess-fetishist's dream come true or (d) all of the above. I vote "d."
What's the Deal? I think I need to add an extra choice to the above list: (e) crack-rock for people who love French movies too much. And if you're a regular reader of these reviews, you've probably already noticed a trend in my adoration of films from that country. It's an addiction, really, and one I'm not sorry for at all. Not that you should take what I say with a grain of salt or anything, because, above all else, I am always right, but I thought I needed to provide some full disclosure on the subject. You can show me a film about a dissolving marriage and how the couple have a lemming stuck in their kitchen sink drain, and I'm happy all day. And by the way, that movie really exists. It's called Lemming.
And Now Back to the Film at Hand: Director Besson is a nutter. And the common wisdom in his home country is that he's too much of a big-shot ego-monster. But what's cool about him is that he has a definable, idiosyncratic way of looking at the world that's only his. It usually involves stylized everything and cartoon-y violence and hot chicks; you can't really count on him to make "good" movies, but at least he's really consistent about being erratic.
Where You've Seen Debbouze: Amélie and one of last year's Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, Days of Glory. And if you're really paying attention, you'll know him as the guy whose onscreen right hand is always hidden or in a pocket because he lost it in a childhood accident. And because he's about five-foot-nothing, he makes for a constantly comic visual companion to the stiletto-heeled Rasmussen.
Where You've Seen Rasmussen: She was the extra-tall woman wearing nothing but diamonds in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale. And you really need to see Femme Fatale, because it's a blast. She has the air of dominatrix/muse about her and is as striking to look at as the Eiffel Tower.
Speaking of the Eiffel Tower: Black and white cinematography junkies will love how everything looks here. It's the shiniest, most silvery, not-in-color movie in a while.