The Pink Panther

Plot synopsis:
Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus narrates a flashback of a soccer match between France and China. French coach Yves Gluant enters the stadium, wearing the Pink Panther diamond ring, which is seen by his team as a symbol of pride and victory. He kisses his girlfriend, pop star Xania, and whispers something to her. After France wins the game in sudden death, Gluant is killed by a poison dart, with the Pink Panther nowhere to be found.
Eager to win the Medal of Honour, Dreyfus promotes a clumsy small-town policeman and "village idiot", Jacques Clouseau, to the rank of Inspector and assigns him to the Pink Panther case. Dreyfus simultaneously assembles a secret team of top investigators to crack the case, allowing Clouseau to serve as the public face of the investigation and draw all the media attention. Dreyfus assigns Gilbert Ponton to be Clouseau's assistant, instructing him to keep him informed of Clouseau's actions. Despite his orders, Ponton quickly becomes friends with Clouseau.
Bizu, a French soccer player who had an affair with Xania and therefore is the prime suspect in Gluant's murder, is shot in the head and killed in the team's locker room. While at a casino to gain information, Clouseau encounters British Agent 006, Nigel Boswell. Boswell foils a robbery at the casino by the "Gas-Mask Bandits", using Clouseau's trench coat to hide his identity. Clouseau mistakenly receives credit for the deed and is subsequently nominated for the Medal of Honour, much to Dreyfus' dismay.
Clouseau follows Xania to New York City, suspecting that she knows more than she is telling. However, despite Ponton's insistence that she is most likely a suspect because Gluant cheated on her, Clouseau decides Xania is innocent. While in New York, Clouseau and Ponton eat hamburgers, and Clouseau discovers his love for the sandwich, which he had assumed to be nothing more than "disgusting American food". Meanwhile, because the poison that killed Gluant was derived from Chinese herbs, Dreyfus concludes that the killer is a Chinese envoy named Dr. Pang.
Ready to take charge of the case and win the Medal of Honour, Dreyfus has one of his officers switch Clouseau's bag with one full of weapons at the airport. The bag sets off the metal detector at the security checkpoint, causing the guards to be suspicious of Clouseau who is eventually arrested because of his inability to pronounce "hamburger" correctly, as he tried to smuggle some for the trip back. Upon his return to France, the press vilifies him and Dreyfus strips him of his rank of Inspector. Dreyfus now plots to publicly arrest Dr. Pang at the Presidential Ball, where Xania will also be performing.
Clouseau returns home and happens to see an article about his arrest online. He deduces from the photograph in it that the assassin will target Xania next, and he contacts Ponton. The two rush to the Élysée Palace and sneak into the Presidential Ball. While Dreyfus publicly arrests Dr. Pang for Gluant's murder, Clouseau and Ponton save Xania's life by capturing her would-be assassin Yuri, the soccer team's trainer. Jealous of Gluant, Yuri used his knowledge of Chinese herbs, mandated by a soccer statute, to kill him.
After overhearing Yuri's rants, Bizu blackmailed him, so Yuri killed Bizu using Russian military tactics to target the latter's occipital lobe. Yuri targeted Xania because she ignored him while she dated Gluant. Clouseau reveals the Pink Panther was not stolen but instead sewn into the lining of Xania's purse. He discovered this after the photograph of his arrest also showed an X-ray of the purse going through airport security. Xania confessed that she received it from Gluant as an engagement ring — he had whispered his proposal to her prior to the match against China — but she hid it because she thought it could implicate her as the killer. Clouseau concludes that Xania is the ring's rightful owner, while Yuri is taken into custody.
For successfully solving the case, Clouseau wins the Medal of Honour. While leaving the ceremony with Ponton, Clouseau gets Dreyfus's suit caught in his car door; he remains oblivious to Dreyfus's screams as he drives away. Clouseau and Ponton later visit him in the hospital. After Clouseau wishes him well, he accidentally releases the brake on Dreyfus's bed; the bed races through the hospital and throws Dreyfus into the Seine, and he shouts Clouseau's name in anger as he takes the plunge into the river.

Tags: psychedelic

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