3.5/5

Review by John P. Harvey.

Yonathan Cobb (Melvil Poupaud) is a steady watchmaker. He knows the value of watches, as dedicated fence Eric Moreno (Sofiane Zermani) learns to his delight when he brings Yonathan a watch for repair. Eric, a schemer, quickly ropes Yonathan into his schemes for some quick trading in stolen goods. But, for all his expertise in valuing watches and even art, Yonathan is utterly naïve in negotiating payment. It drives Eric crazy.

Eric has long used Jo (Steve Tientcheu) to obtain precious items, especially to obtain art works to order. Jo is an artist in his field — cat burglary — but, being as naïve as Yonathan, has let Eric dupe him for years. After Jo pulls off the heist of five valuable paintings, the most expensive museum heist in French history, Eric once again rewards him with a token payment. Now Jo has had enough.

Yonathan’s new secretiveness has alerted his wife, Agnès (Julia Piaton) that something is up, and she wants to know what it is. Eric is pressuring him. Jo is quietly threatening him. And Yonathan, without street smarts to rely upon in these departures from his old routine, ricochets from one unplanned reaction to the next.

Poupaud is well cast as the hapless Yonathan, who, knowing better than to allow Eric into his life, does so anyway, and Zermani is masterful as the unscrupulous conman, Eric. Piaton — who appears also in this festival’s Colours of Time and Treasure Hunters: On the Tracks of Khufu — portrays the epitome of the competent French wife, and Tientcheu makes of Jo a marvellously sympathetic cat burglar.

With each character’s flaws contributing at the right moments, despite their combined skills, to the complete catastrophe, The French Job is fast-paced and fun.

Based surprisingly closely on the real-life 2010 robbery of five paintings from the Museum of Modern Art, in Paris — at that time the largest museum heist in French history — The French Job is a hoot. The plot is believable (and substantially factual!), and the three criminals play off each other dynamically. With many comic moments arising from deficiencies in insight and judgement — including a monumental failure to close a gaping hole in museum security — the film paints a surprisingly credible picture of three mismatched opportunists losing their grip as their loose plans descend, ever so gently and unnecessarily, into chaos.

It was the most expensive heist in French history — and even its perpetrators had no clue.

Screening at Palace cinemas.