The Fugitives

The last of Francis Veber's trilogy with Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu, after La Chèvre in 1981 and Les Compères in 1983. It was shot over six weeks in Bordeaux in June and July 1986. Lucas has just come out of prison and is determined not to go back, and walks into a bank in the middle of a robbery. The robber is hopeless, cannot even hold the gun properly, panics and takes Lucas hostage. It then emerges that the man is a father looking for money for his small daughter, who has not spoken a word in the three years since her mother died. The police, meanwhile, are looking for Lucas as the instigator. The two have to run. Veber's template is the same: the hard, capable man has to carry the utterly helpless one, and in the end the carried one saves the relationship. But this film has a third element, the silent child, and Veber lets feeling get ahead of comedy. It sold 4,496,827 tickets in France, the sixth biggest release of the year. Veber remade it himself in America in 1989 as Three Fugitives, with Nick Nolte, Martin Short and James Earl Jones. Who it is for: viewers used to the emotional wing of French comedy and to this pairing. Who it is not for: anyone wanting to laugh throughout. The second half leaves comedy for melodrama and the tone changes noticeably.