Johanna Paquali (Alice Pol) is desperate to become one of the elite police team in Paris but her attempts thus far have been hampered by her overt clumsiness and her ability to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. The daughter of a government minister (Michel Blanc) and fiancee of Edouard, the heir to a tyre dynasty (Patrick Mille), she does not need to work but she wants to prove her worth. Papa and Edouard decide to exert their influence to get her into the training squad thinking she will inevitably fail. However her trainer Gene (Dany Boon, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Sarah Kaminsky) moves from misogynist to admirer over the course of events. Sabine Azema and Yvan Attal are deliciously camp as Jo’s prospective mother-in-law and the Serbian master villain respectively.
This is a French language, mad-cap, slapstick comedy in the Private Benjamin/Miss Congeniality tradition where the girl outdoes her male colleagues, beats the baddies against all the odds and gets the guy in the end to boot. There are some genuine belly laughs as, for example, Jo distinguishes herself in the shooting gallery by hitting the targets’ genitals rather than the traditional head and chest areas. Though overlong and predictable at times, this is an entertaining, engaging, rainy afternoon chick flick (and chick flic … and chic flick)!
See it:
Saturday, 24th June 2035 Odeon 2
Monday, 26th June 1545 Vue Omni 12
Mary is a longstanding writer with publications in The Scotsman and a number of independent travel logs and blogs. She has written professionally as part of her 40 year career in education and for pleasure.
