The black-humorous Irish-British comedy “Long live ned devine!” From 1998 was a genuine art house hit. Kirk Jones found a grateful audience in this country with his warm film around a swindled lottery win, in the end there were more than half a million tickets sold. Who does not dream of a large sum of money that would make an at least financially careful life possible? A good quarter of a century later, a French remake comes to our cinemas. Why? Doesn't matter! In any case, it would not have been necessary, because director and co-author Hervé Mimran (“The Second Life of the Monsieur Alain”) is largely the original. It does not miss the story an update nor adds its essential.
Of course, the setting is no longer a remote village on the Irish coast, but a similar place on a Breton island. There Henri (Gérard Darmon) watches the drawing of the lottery numbers on television. Happiness is not hold again. But then he and his buddy Jean-Jean (Didier Bourdon) by chance get pointed that someone broke the jackpot out of their village. They secretly try to find out who it is. Soon you determined the winner. But the old Bodvaël sits dead in front of his still running TV with the game certificate in his hand. At the same time with luck, the blow hit him. Since the accident raven has no relatives, the lottery company would keep the profit. That shouldn't be like that, the friends think – and hedges with Henri's wife Nadèche (Chantal Lauby) a sophisticated plan to get the money himself …
Henri (Gérard Darmon) and Jean-Jean (Didier Bourdon) recognize their chance of giving up very big.
So far, so well known. And what follows will be those who “live ned devine!” know, give many other Dèja-Vu moments. The architectural elements and punch line, which are directly adopted, also work in the remake. So Mimran does it to take over the first gag from the work of its predecessor one to one: after all, you can hardly imagine a more funnation into the plot. In contrast, incomprehensible why he does not take over the beautiful castle.
In general, however, the deviations from the original are only marginal. In the new version, for example, the lottery company sends a woman instead of a man to accept the winner and check his identity. The fact that the village querulant Lizzy Quinn has now become a troublemaker named Isidore (François Chattot) also has little influence on the plot.
Disassemble your own accents
Basically, however, you should be grateful for your loyalty to the previous film. Because where the director and the script team set their own accents, it usually looks. A trip from Henri and Jean-Jean to the mainland is an example, which serves to get papers fake in Brest. First the two get to deal with a crazy driver, then with a neo-Nazi Hitler fan and finally with angry young people with a migration background. Unfortunately, this is not strange and also irrelevant for the story. And the amorous advances that a somewhat more old woman makes the stocky Jean-Jean are so plump-derber's way that you even feel reminded of sex clothes from the late 1960s for a short time.
Otherwise, the view of the village microcosm, which is characterized by the proximity to the rough lake, is also sympathetic here. However, the sometimes coarser joke is also associated with a somewhat coarser figure drawing. After all, the three main characters gain more distinctive contours: Henri's wife Nadège-convincingly played by Chantal Lauby, who should be known to us primarily as a wife of the title antihelden from the “Monsieur Claude” films-even becomes a driving force in the profit procurement planning.
Small piece of paper, big effects …
But Gérard Darmon (“Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra”) and Didier Bourdon (“A good year”) also competent their lovable and coarse characters. With the stocky and jovial Jean-Jean, Bourdon embodies a slightly different type of male than his counterpart David Kelly, who gave the bony Michael from the original film somewhat more reserved. Therefore, the most touching moment in “The Great Lot”, in which Henri suddenly has to convert his funeral speech for the late Bodvaël on Jean-Jean and turns it into a statement of friendship, not quite an emotional force as the corresponding scene in the original.
Conclusion: The remake that seems more effortless than inspired remains behind the iconic original in many ways. Long live ned devine!