Ruby & Quentin (2003)

Francis Veber is one of my favorite French filmmakers, with some amazingly clever comedies to his credit, such as "The Closet" and "The Dinner Game". However, compared to his best films, I'd place "Tais-Toi!" just below them...watchable and enjoyable but nothing more.The story begins with Quentin (Gérard Depardieu) getting arrested for an armed robbery. However, it's obvious that he's very dumb...incredibly dumb. He also loves to talk a lot and subsequently annoys his various cellmates in jail. Eventually, Ruby (Jean Reno) is placed in the same cell...because he's refused to say even a word to the police following his stealing a gang of professional thieves' loot. The police hope that Quentin will drive Ruby crazy....just like he did with his previous cellmates. Oddly, Quentin thinks Ruby is his best buddy...even though for much of the film Ruby says nothing to him. And, since Ruby is his 'buddy', Quentin is determined to help his friend escape. As for Ruby, his only goal is to get out in order to kill the gang leader. After all, he murdered Ruby's girlfriend and paybacks are definitely in order.Throughout the film, Quentin annoys the heck out of Ruby...a bit like the idiot in "The Dinner Game" annoyed his host. These moments are enjoyable and overall the film is worth seeing even if it is a tad formulaic towards the end.

An inept but constantly talking small-time thief Quentin (Gérard Depardieu) is sent to prison after a botched bank robbery. There he shares a cell with a hardened gangster Ruby (Jean Reno) who refuses to say a word until getting out. Believing Ruby to be his new best friend, Quentin helps him to escape and tags along with him, much to Ruby's annoyance. Many crazy incidents follow, as the escapees are chased not only by the police but also by Ruby's former colleagues, led by a crime lord named Vogel (Jean-Pierre Malo).The appeal of the movie is largely built on the charisma of the two stars and many buddy movie conventions. Quentin and Ruby's initially one-sided friendship advances exactly as expected, so originality is not among this movie's achievements but who cares as long as it's funny, right? Luckily the dialogue is fairly amusing and some of the situations earn a chuckle or two, like the Ruby-lookalike horse and the cops' habit of losing their patrol cars. Perhaps the movie could have benefited from being more over the top especially during the chase scenes, as now the crime and drama aspects of the story are not very well developed (e.g. Ruby's financial schemes against his former boss and his love for a deceased woman). Adding more jokes or other entertaining scenes could have helped to make the movie more memorable, even though it is funny now, too.In any case, Depardieu and Reno have good on-screen chemistry together and make the movie very watchable for any fan of buddy comedies. Tais-toi may not be the comedy gem of the century, but it's a fun little movie all the same.

Director 'Francis Veber' makes here one of the best comedies I have seen in ages, quite equal to 'Diner de cons' and some of the good French comedies from 60s.Sure, casting Gerard Depardieu and Jean Reno helps, each plays a role quite in their line of casting, but the film never gets boring, after having started with a series of gags that gave me some good laughs. Although the slightly retarded type was subjects to many films lately Depardieu's version is both comic without descending to low and moving without falling into melodrama.Highly recommended for comedy fans.

at last all those French lessons paid off. I laughed in French. Not quite "haw haw he haw"; but real belly laughs. This film by Francis Verber with Jean Reno playing the solemn solid straight man to Gerard Depardieu's comic idiot is wonderful and worth seeing right now. Reno plays Ruby the cool professional hard-man out for revenge against the gangland Bigman who has murdered his lover. He finds himself lumbered with Depardieu's Quintin, the simpleton from Montargis. There is plenty of slapstick, good lines, cross dressing; pathos and verve.Aver, un petite question? In the middle of the film they both end up in a Psychiatric hospital as a route to escaping from prison. The Psychiatric Hospital is portrayed much as the fears of the 60s showed them; people strapped to beds; forcibly injected to numb them out of their skulls; frog marched around the high walled secure grounds by men in white coats. St Bernards in West London when I was a schoolboy in Southall had that feel to it. So much has been done to try and ease the myths about madness and does this just set things back? I've worked in Psychiatry for a 3rd of a century and things have moved on. Those inkblots are more likely to be just stains now in a dark history. it left me a bit uneasy that madness is still a source for a caricatured laugh. But, then again, there are moves now to start locking wards again, to depersonalise people, to make security of the outside more important than sanctuary for the troubled; and maybe this film actually does a service to warn against that backward move.So, a winner all round. go see.