Taxi 2

In Marseille, taxi driver Daniel and hapless policeman Émilien are now chasing a yakuza gang that has kidnapped the Japanese defence minister. Luc Besson wrote it, with directing passing from Gérard Pirès on the first film to Gérard Krawczyk, who by production accounts did what he wanted without feeling bound by Besson's scenarios. It opened on 830 screens in France and beat existing records with over three million admissions in a week, grossing 64.4 million dollars worldwide on a 10.5 million budget. Its most famous sequence carries its heaviest story. While shooting the Peugeot 406 jumping over tanks in August 1999, the car landed several metres further than expected and struck the 41-year-old cameraman Alain Dutartre, who died shortly afterwards. Legal proceedings followed, and in 2009 the production company was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and ordered to pay damages. Reviews were cool, with a BBC critic giving two stars and finding very little of merit in it. Who it is for: viewers who like French action comedy and car sequences. Who it is not for: anyone who cares how the humour reads now. The film shows no care at all in its jokes about Japanese characters.