Compères, Les (1983)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer-Les Compères Trailer- Madman Propaganda
Rating
Year Of Production	1983
Running Time	87:22
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (49:09)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Francis Veber
Studio Distributor	Madman Madman Entertainment	Starring	Pierre Richard Gérard Depardieu Anny Duperey Michel Aumont Stéphane Bierry Philippe Khorsand Jean-Jacques Scheffer Maurice Barrier Roland Blanche Bruno Allain François Bernheim Patrick Blondel Philippe Brigaud
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Vladimir Cosma

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Francis Veber has written and directed three wonderful comedies back-to-back in the last few years; Tais-Toi (Ruby & Quentin), The Closet and The Dinner Game. I was lucky enough to review Tais-Toi, which I enjoyed very much. And now Madman are releasing a three disc box set of older Veber titles, of which this is the third to be reviewed. The previous two are La Chevre &Les Fugitifs, which have been reviewed by my colleagues on this site. I was very keen to review these titles and am glad that I got this one to review. Having said that, I found this to be a little disappointing compared to his newer films. It may be partially due to the American remake of this film, Fathers' Day, which was pretty diabolical, however, I felt this film was a little dated and quite slow in parts. There were some very amusing scenes but overall it seemed a bit uneven to me.

    The plot involves a teenager, Tristan, running away from his home in Paris with a girl and heading to the south of France. His mother Christine is very anxious about him but cannot get much assistance from the police. Desperate, she decides to ring two of her old boyfriends and convince them to search for the boy by telling both of them that he is Tristan's father. Firstly, she calls Jean Lucas (Gerard Depardieu), a tough journalist who writes exposes about the mob, and when he initially refuses to help, she calls Francois Pignon (Pierre Richard), a hopeless neurotic who has tried many times to kill himself and is having another attempt when the phone rings. They meet by accident at the hotel owned by the girl's father and agree to team up. They quickly realise they are searching for the same boy...

    Depardieu was the highlight and I found Richard fairly unfunny in this role. Certainly worth a look for fans of the director's work, however, this is not one of his best.

Video

    The video quality is very good for a film of this age.

    The feature is presented in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear, benefiting from the high bitrate of the transfer. There was no evidence of low level noise.

    The colour was quite good although a little overbright resulting in some colour bleeding from light colours.

    Artefacts were only minor in nature but included some small specks, some white lines at 21:40, some aliasing on a rug at 48:45 and some edge enhancement.

    There are subtitles in English, which unlike many foreign language films released here were encoded as a subtitle stream allowing them to be turned off for native speakers. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read.

    The layer change occurs at 49:09 causing a significant pause and a little jump.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains two audio options, a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and a French Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s. These two are virtually interchangeable as there is no surround or subwoofer action anyway.

    Dialogue seemed clear and there was no problem with audio sync. Some lines of dialogue seemed to include background hiss.

    The score of this film by Vladimir Cosma is badly dated and the whistled theme song is just plain annoying.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used in any noticeable way.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Not much here....

Menu

    The menu included the annoying theme song and the ability to select scenes, languages and subtitles.

Essay

    Inside the case is an essay on Veber's work and films.

Theatrical Trailer (1:22)

    An average trailer with quite soft video. Shows how good the main film's transfer is.

Other Trailers

    Trailers are included for Les Fugitifs, Mon Oncle, The Closet and Tais-Toi.

     There are three releases available around the globe which I can find. One, the Russian release, can be dismissed immediately as it only has Russian subtitles. There is a French release, however, this has no subtitles at all, not even in French. Neither release has any extras. The only possible one to consider is the Region 0 US release which is in NTSC at 1.85:1 16x9 enhanced. This is the incorrect aspect ratio, so that counts it out. I think our local release is easily the best available even if you speak French as the French release is not 16x9 enhanced and the local subtitles are removable.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good.

    A few minor extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall