dancing in September

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2012)

I knew that THE INTOUCHABLES was playing in more cinemas than the ones a European picture usually gets to in Mexico City. It's still playing actually (and will continue to, at least, till next Thursday), which means that the film has survived in cinemas more than a month – a real achievement since this is a city where not even the films of a modern American auteur like Wes Anderson remain in theaters more than a week or two. I watched the trailer of THE INTOUCHABLES (its Mexican title is AMIGOS, which means "FRIENDS") once and it seemed all right, but really nothing that attracted me enough to rush to the cinema. Then I realized it was part of IMDb's always-controversial top 250 – I knew I had to check it out as soon as possible, for mere movie geek curiosity.
First, I will have to answer to that obvious question regarding the top 250: no, I don't think it's one of the greatest films of all-time, much less the seventieth. In fact, I wasn't impressed but then again, I'm not really part of the kind of audience that love or will love it – I mean, one can easily see why this film is a success with audiences all around the world. It's definitely a good one and I got it and enjoyed the good of it.
Is there something bad about it then? Well, not really – the film tried to be both funny and meaningful and it was. One can argue about the underdevelopment of some interesting issues (like the whole background story of one of the two main characters; the one played by Omar Sy), but that would be just unimportant. My girlfriend watched it with me and she enjoyed it a whole lot; in fact, she would watch it again, while I wouldn't. Is clear to me that most women will adore it, so yeah, you should take your special one to see it.
To finish this brief commentary, I'm listing some other thoughts on the film:
1) The music is very tasty; the American band Earth, Wind & Fire plays an important role here. We have a nice and memorable title sequence inside a car set to one of their songs ("September"); for me it will be very difficult from now on to hear that famous song and not think in Omar Sy's character Driss. And I heard some other good tunes, so I'm definitely getting the full soundtrack (although the band is mentioned by Driss, there aren't Kool & the Gang songs, by the way).
2) A joke on how the art world works reminded of Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. You know, it shows that sometimes art is all about freakin' hype.
3) Omar Sy shines. It was my introduction to this French actor and his character was definitely my favorite element of the film. It's classic stuff really, with a young and crazy-pot-smoking dude who's just f' hilarious – I imagine that the controversial Italian footballer Mario Balotelli is just like Driss (I hope that makes sense to you).
4) The film has the classic "clash of different worlds" thing. You know the storyline already, right? The young and crazy dude, from the ghetto, gets a job as the carer of a quadriplegic and wealthy man. It's obvious material, but not really in a bad way – for instance, there's a scene in which Driss is shaving his pal Philippe (the wealthy man; played by François Cluzet, who sort-of looks like Robert De Niro) and I could see the Hitler mustache joke coming a mile away. And just like the joke was still all right, the whole film feels like that no matter of the obvious issues it offers.
*Watched it on 23 September, 2012