T4XI
Director: Gérard Krawczyk
Writer: Luc Besson
Starring: Samy Naceri, Frederic Diefenthal, Bernard Farcy
Genre: Action/comedy
Rating: PG 13
Running Time: 91 minutes
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There’s no faulting Luc Besson’s commercial instincts. But anyone over age 12 watching the Besson-penned Taxi 4, barely three months after Arthur and the Invisibles, could justifiably assume he’s aiming about as high as a limbo bar.
Level of comic finesse in this strident yet boring tale of what happens when a Belgian gangster escapes in Marseilles makes the Three Stooges look like thesping peers of the Barrymores.
Still, Besson and helmer Gerard Krawczyk have another inexplicable hit on their hands. A dumb popular comedy should feature at least a few gags worth repeating, but this time the cupboard is almost bare.
If the occasional multiple-car pileup, confiscated dope smoked in police station restrooms by a Rasta cop or rocket fired inside a Cannes villa seem the stuff of great escapist comedy, get thee to France.
Police Commissioner Gilbert (Bernard Farcy, pulling out all the stops) mistakes a hotel chambermaid for a terrorist and pegs soccer star Djibril Cisse (himself) as a possible illegal immigrant. Benign authority figure Gilbert is none too bright; ditto his staff of cartoonish plainclothes cops.
Sweetly bumbling Emilien (Frederic Diefenthal) works hard but may be too nice a guy to be a sharp policeman. He and cool cabbie Daniel (Samy Naceri) are best friends whose young sons play together.
Location work in Marseilles, Monaco and Cannes is underwhelming, stunts are just adequate and humour ranges from passably silly (car sickness! doors slamming into noses! hair on fire!) to heavy-handed.
- Lisa Nesselson