This is a remake of Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932),which Paul Mazursky remade in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).

I'm not sure why it had to be done again (a universal dearth of ideas possibly),but it's not a bad piece of fluff, an enjoyable waste of time. Its only real problem is its length: it just runs out steam. Jugnot and Depardieu are fun to watch for a while, but you just know their mutual fulminations and frustrations are going to wane; sure enough, it happens, at about the 75-minute mark. After that, it just goes downhill, and there just isn't any fun anymore.

Depardieu offers us yet another self-mocking caricature of Gerard Depardieu. I like him a lot -- it's somehow endearing to see this universally known actor fearlessly showing his bulbous belly and nude derriere to a worldwide audience. It's somehow very European, or maybe just French. I've always loved Catherine Frot, and her ditzy performance adds a lot to the silliness.

Good comedies are hard to find. One reason is that they can rarely sustain the comedy and the 'plot' convincingly over a feature length. This is the fate of this latest incarnation of Boudu.

Boudu is a remake, but after three-quarters of a century, not three-quarters of an hour, as in Hollywood (which dearly wants to wipe out French cinema and is actively working to that end). What's more, this is a perfect comedy in itself, with dozens of nicely observed touches, such as the house-painter who pulls his pants out of his crack whenever he gets out of the car. Boudu is a mythological creature, as the operatic score points up. He should have hairy legs, hooves and two little horns, plus an enormous omphallos as in the ancient Roman theatre. Europeans pick up on these themes unconsciously, whereas Americans have no such equipment and would not know what to make of this bizarre cuckoo comedy, let alone sub-titles, which they will only accept from Mel Gibson's films in obscure forgotten tongues. Few Hollywood stars would have the wit to play the female leads in this film: the frustrated wife and the chaste ingenue. And what Hollywood star would fail to overact in Gerard Jugnot's role? As for Depardieu, the role could have been written for him. With his heart operation scar showing clearly in one scene we have to realise that one day he will be gone and life, as Boudu sagely says, is all too short. "You can't capture the wind," he says as he walks out of their lives, and the viewer cannot help feeling a pang of regret. This is a gem of the story-telling art, in the ancient tradition of Boccaccio's Decameron. Don't miss it if you see it going by!

For the first time of my life I went to a sneak preview and I was full of great expectations, but unfortunately everything I got was Jugnot's "Boudu".

The plot is fast told, Jugnot plays a bourgeois and narrow-minded art dealer, who saves a homeless (crankily played by Depardieu) from drowning and generously lets him spend one night at his home. In return Depardieu turns Jugnot's whole life totally upside down. At first everybody in the small french town is disgusted by Boudu's habits, but the better the people get to know him, the more Boudu changes everyone's life in a positive way.

"Boudu" is above all or even solely appropriate for confirmed Depardieu- or French-Comedy-Fans.

Depardieu perfectly fits the role of "Boudu", playing Boudu's rude and plump character gave him visible pleasure.

But the comparatively trivial plot and the inevitable vulgar jokes (f.ex. Depardieu's white and hairy butt, curse or beat-jokes) tire the spectator already after a short period. The bettering of the the people's lives due to Boudu's presence as well as the questionable socio-critical ending are very unrealistic. Why Jugnot's wife and his cute assistant are attracted to a disgusting homeless like Boudu and even sleep with him is as shady as the fact that Jugnot even forgives him and says he loves him, after he finds out, that Boudu has impregnated his wife.

The film lacks above all originality,(for it is a remake of the 1932 Renoir-Classic "Boudu saved from downing").

It is definitely an film, nobody needs, except those, who cannot get enough of Gerard Depardieu.