Word: veber
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...Francis Veber, the man behind the extraordinary comic feats La Cage Aux Folles and Les Comperes, (both eventually remade in Hollywood as The Birdcage and Father's Day) has crafted another farce: The Dinner Game. But it falls short of Veber's usual promise. Given the unsurpassable hilarity of Les Comperes--a film that amuses even after repeated viewings--The Dinner Game pales in comparison...
...Francis Veber believes in machinery...
...ageless contrivances of farce. Here, as in his scripts for La Cage aux Folles, L 'Emmerdeur (remade in the U.S. as Buddy Buddy) and Partners, Veber throws a tough guy and a soft guy into an improbable stew, mixes identities, spices with a gangster or two and stirs to a giddy boil...
...director, Veber elicits endearingly screwball performances from his leads: Depardieu, who looks like the last side of beef they hauled out of Les Halles, and Richard, his cartoon face ever ready to burst into laughter or tears...
...Neal occasionally overcomes the film's limitations; his timing is good--though not his lines, which are penned by La Cage Aux Folles' Francis Veber. La Cage dealt with effeminate homosexual homebodies, too. But Veber fails to recapture any of that film's charm and wit. Most important, Veber presented the characters in La Cage affectionately. Partners is, if anything, mean-spirited. It doesn't introduce a single homosexual who isn't rendered weak-kneed or babbling by O'Neal's chest, eyes or "fabulous" thighs...