Comedy Central: Our Top French Film Capers of all Time

LE DÎNER DE CONS

Director: Francis Veber
Starring: Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret

Big-shot Parisian publisher Pierre Brochant is in a pickle. His weekly ‘dîner de cons’ (idiots’ dinner) – a cruel ritual which sees him and his posse of smug high-flyers invite the dullest possible oafs for supper and have a jolly good time at the unsuspecting sods’ expense – is fast approaching and he finds himself without a ‘con’ to bring along. Well, he did have a “champion” lined up – not content to humiliate their guests, the hard-boiled lot also declare a winner post-dinner – until his hopeful suffered a freak boomerang accident. So when Brochant hears at the eleventh hour through a sort of friend/recruiter (he doesn’t even bother to procure his own talent) of François Pignon, a dunderhead tax inspector with a passion for matchstick model making, he is all but drooling in anticipation. But the best-laid plans…

On the fateful night Brochant injures his back, leaving him unable to attend the dinner party. A heartbreakingly solicitous Pignon shows up at his door anyway – armed with a briefcase stuffed with pictures of his matchstick marvels – and, sadly for the temporary invalid, takes it upon himself to look after the callous publisher, boring him half to death with incessant natter about his models and bungling the simplest of tasks. By the end of the roller-coaster evening, the ever-earnest but bafflingly gaffe-prone Pignon has unintentionally engineered a tête-a-tête between Brochant’s wife and his rather clingy mistress, saddled him with an impromptu and ruinous tax audit and left his well-ordered life in complete tatters.

Many (copycats) have tried to recapture, and flat-out rip off – the less said about the US remake the better – Dîner de Cons’ inimitable hat-trick of jacked-up farce, quick-fire gags and uplifting ‘revenge-of- the-nerds’ triumph. But 20 years on, few can hold a candle to the screwball caper. The ultimate feel-good romp!