Let's Rob the Bank

A comedy set in France. Victor runs a hunting supplies shop. He has a wife, two children and an orderly life. His neighbour across the street is a bank manager. The man gives him a tip about an investment. Victor puts all his savings into that share. The share collapses. He is ruined. He wants his money back and the bank manager of course gives him nothing. An idea comes. The shop is directly opposite the bank and there are only a few metres between them. From there the film is a story about a tunnel. They start in the cellar and dig downwards. It is a family business. His wife, his son, his daughter and his daughter's boyfriend; all of them dig. The earth becomes a problem. Where to put what comes out is a matter in itself and the solutions grow steadily absurd. The shop upstairs has to stay open. Customers come and Victor sells shotguns in between. What the narrative is interested in is not robbery but proportion: its idea is a wholly honest man stepping into crime while considering himself in the right, and never counting it as crime. Louis de Funès plays with his known energy. Shouting, agitation, sudden anger, and a false calm immediately after. His wife's line is the film's balance. She never panics and it is she who actually runs the plan. The outcome arrives somewhere unexpected and the narrative turns everything it built inside out in the last ten minutes. The structure is plain. It takes place almost entirely in a shop, a cellar and a tunnel. Louis de Funès, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Yvonne Clech and Claude Rich are in the cast. Jean Girault directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1960s French comedy and de Funès's playing. Who it is not for: anyone looking for subtlety; the jokes run on repetition and the pace sags somewhere in the middle.