Taxi

Taxi (1998)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: Gerard Pires

Starring: Samy Naceri, Frederic Diefenthal, Marion Cotillard, Manuela Gouray, Emma Wiklund

From: Several French companies

As I made it home last night, I can say I enjoyed my trip but it is also nice to be back on familiar ground. Amazon continues to deliver with the sort of things that I'd want to see. This French film has fans all around the world. I don't love it yet I can't say it was bad either. I explain it below: 

As I sometimes have to do, I have to explain to a worldwide audience how something may be surprisingly not popular or not even known in the United States. While plenty around the world know the Taxi trilogy, they definitely were never theatrically released in America and even on disc they are hard to come by over here; thus, I had never seen any of them (the only film clip seen beforehand was the opening to the third one, as it was online at the time and I had to see Sly Stallone cameo in a wacky French action picture) and I only recently discovered the first in the quartet of films was on Amazon, available for rental.

One day I may see the sequels via less ethical means. And before anyone panics, I've never seen the 2004 Hollywood remake, which OF COURSE Hollywood screwed up. Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon going after Brazilian supermodel bank robbers is definitely wacky but I understand it's also pretty putrid.

I am sure by now many know how the plot revolves around a speed demon taxi cab driver having to escort a police officer/poor driver around as he tries to capture German bank robbers, so I won't spend much time recapping that. Even I knew the basic story beforehand, along with there being only one person in the cast I recognized. The movie, it's quite silly and also more than a little dopey. Yet I can say this was fine. The camera leers at both Marion Cotillard (who'd I like to “develop photos” with) and Emma Wiklund... this was not too unusual for genre movies of the time.

I've been told the action scenes were better in the sequels... what I saw here, there were still shootouts and car chases to marvel at. But comedy is the focus rather than the action or the police/detective work. Not a cinematic masterpiece or the best of its type... I am not that surprised this became so popular in France and a few other countries.