The ComDads

The middle film of the trilogy in which Francis Veber put Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu against each other. The setup rests on a single lie. A woman whose son has run away finds two former lovers from around the time he was conceived and tells each of them separately that the boy is his, in order to get them to look for him. Both come. One is a confident, hard-edged journalist; the other is chronically suicidal, hopeless and touching. Searching for the boy, they have to put up with each other. The engine of every Veber film runs here too: the strong one makes the plan, the weak one wrecks it, and in the end it is the weak one's incompetence that works. It was remade in America in 1997 as Father's Day, directed by Ivan Reitman, with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. Who it is for: viewers who like French popular comedy and the Richard-Depardieu pairing. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the female characters to be more than function. The mother exists to start the setup and is almost invisible for the rest of it.