Showing posts with label Gerard Pires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerard Pires. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 March 2012

Taxi 1998.


Supercharged Peugeot 406.
Like Subway (1985) before it, the French action/comedy written by Luc Besson and this time directed by Gerard Pires, Taxi (1998) has a great opening sequence, on this occasion it’s not a car chase it’s the fastest pizza delivery your ever see accompanied by a fantastic Tarantino type sound track! Daniel (Sami Naceri) is a pizza delivery boy who trades up his two wheels for four and becomes a taxi driver. With his supercharged Peugeot, which has to be seen to be believed, our driver can get you from A to B before you can say speeding fine. Eventually the police catch up with our ex-pizza boy and work out a deal that involves driving around a police inspector (Frederic Diefenthall) who to date has failed his driving test on numerous occasions, but needs to catch some German bank robbers that use high-speed Mercedes saloons to evade capture.

Sami Naceri and Marion Cotillard.

Our action takes place in Marseille, and what action we get, fantastic choreographed car chases, pile-ups and gun battles are the high points of this insane movie. Its great fun, obviously not to be taken seriously but has the added bonus of a 22 year old Marion Cotillard as Daniels girl friend Lilly for which she was nominated for a Cesar Award for Most Promising Actress. The critics panned the remake by the Americans: so only except the original.