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Published: 25 February 2010
by DAN CARRIER

HOW do arms dealers sleep at night? Hopefully a little less easier if they find themselves viewing this odd French offering from Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. 

We meet young Bazil (Dany Boon) whose father is some kind of mine disposal expert. In the opening scene we watch Papa get blown to smithereens, leading to his mother having a breakdown and the poor mite being shoved into the cruel care of a Catholic school. One of the only momentos he has to remember his dearly departed by is the remains of the mine that killed him, with the brand name clearly recognisable on the shrapnel. Fast forward a couple of decades, and our hero is now happily running a video store – until a gun fight outside sees a bullet ricochet through the shop window and bury itself in his head.

He then discovers that another arms firm, who happen to be situated opposite the mob that made the bomb that killed his dad in two grand art deco factory/offices, made the bullet that nearly killed him. He loses his job and becomes homeless, until he is taken into the care of a group of Steptoe and Son-like scrap metal recyclers, who live under a rubbish dump and make funny contraptions out of the odds and ends they have found. With his new friends, they devise a fantastical scheme to get revenge on the two vile death merchants who own the companies who have made the ordnance.

While the story at times is pretty silly, that doesn’t matter when the film is this delicious to look at and with such a great cast. 

It has plenty of visual gags and a clear set of goodies to take on the horrible arms dealers. 

It is very clear who is in the right and who is the wrong. 

I like films that are this black and white, and while at times it’s a little too French-circus cliched for its own good, compared to the vast majority of the drivel that gets put out on general release, this is an entertaining, imaginative and glorious film to look at, with a great message on the evils of the arms trade to boot.