8/10
Amazing cross-lingual humour
11 May 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I was very impressed with the enduring humour of this film. I watched it in French in which I am not fluent but I still found this film very funny. The phrase 'J'ai glisse, chef' has entered my everyday vocabulary The film follows three hapless soldiers of the French army, who are cut off from the main body of their company by the invading Germans. Through incompetence, laziness and general uselessness they somehow manage to ride to glory and rescue their company.

Despite being thirty years old this film is still delightfully amusing. The French scenery is breathtaking, the characters lovable and the jokes simple enough for even someone who cannot totally understand French to comprehend. It reminded me very much of 'Dad's Army', it's a lighthearted romp through a potentially dangerous subject.

It is not a cinematic masterpiece. The characters are stereotypical idiots, bumbling around falling in rivers, losing their shoes. It is not a deep movie. The plot doesn't really make a lot of sense, and the direction is not memorable. But it was never aiming to be any of these things.

I would class this as a Sunday afternoon film, it's not serious and it's perfect to watch lazily on the sofa with a beer in your hand as Sunday lunch goes down.
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