crime is our business (le crime est notre affaire) 2008 (frot, dussollier) region free dvd5 french bcbc

Crime Is Our Business (French: Le Crime est notre affaire) is a 2008 French comedy mystery film directed by Pascal Thomas and starring Catherine Frot, André Dussollier and Claude Rich. It is based on the Agatha Christie novel 4.50 from Paddington (but with a change of detectives from Miss Marple to Tommy and Tuppence).

Contains movie and Optional English Subtitles. No menus or extras. Regular DVD quality. Spoken Language: French













Synopsis

An adaptation of Agatha Christie's 1929 short story "The House of Lurking Death," this French-language whodunit represents director Pascal Thomas's third Christie adaptation, following the 2005 By the Pricking of My Thumbs and the 2007 Towards Zero; like Thumbs, it hones in on Prudence (Catherine Frot) and Belisaire Beresford (Andre Dussollier), a married pair of amateur sleuths. This particular outing is set at Christmastime, and finds the Rhone Alps-dwelling Beresfords visited by a beloved aunt, Auntie Babette (Annie Cordy), who promptly informs them that she spotted a murder through a rainy window while seated on a train. Eager for a new crime to solve, Prudence jumps into the case when Belisaire leaves town on a weekend jaunt, and makes her way to a creepy chateau in the middle of the forest, populated by the most unpleasant of families. Inhabitants include an eccentric patriarch widower named Roderick Charpentier (Claude Rich), his morose daughter Emma (Chiara Mastroianni), his conniving and paranoid sons (Christian Vadim, Alexandre Lafaurie and Melvil Poupaud), and a local country doctor (Hippolyte Girardot). Prudence takes a position as a cook at the residence, and when the body crops up, it soon falls on her shoulders to ferret out the murderer. Soon, her husband joins her at the house, tipped off by a local detective regarding his wife's whereabouts.



Cast

Catherine Frot as Prudence Beresford

André Dussollier as Bélisaire Beresford

Claude Rich as Roderick Charpentier

Annie Cordy as Babette Boutiti, Prudence's aunt

Chiara Mastroianni as Emma Charpentier, daughter of Roderick

Melvil Poupaud as Frédéric Charpentier, youngest son of Roderick

Alexandre Lafaurie as Raphaël Charpentier, son of Roderick

Christian Vadim as Augustin Charpentier, eldest son of Roderick

Hippolyte Girardot as Dr. Lagarde

Yves Afonso as Inspector Blache

Valériane de Villeneuve as Mme Clairin

Marie Lorna Vaconsin as Mme Valois

Laura Benson as Margaret Brown

Florence Maury as Diane



CRIME IS OUR BUSINESS (French: Le Crime est notre affaire)

Film Review

Not long after scoring a palpable hit as crime-fighting duo Prudence and Bélisaire Beresford in Pascal Thomas's Mon petit doigt m'a dit... (2005), Catherine Frot and André Dussollier are reunited for another round of camp amateur sleuthing, British-style. Le Crime est notre affaire is Thomas's third Agatha Christie adaptation, following his slick L'Heure zéro (2007), and is based on Christie's novel 4.50 from Paddington. Those with long memories and nothing better to do with their time will recall that this novel had been previously adapted as Murder She Said (1961), one of a series of films in which the incomparable Margaret Rutherford offered her unique (some would say heretical) interpretation of Miss Marple.



This film may be set in our time but it immediately evokes the world of the original Agatha Christie novels (far more successfully than the Margaret Rutherford films ever did). It combines Christie's penchant for the sinister and the subtly macabre with a characteristically Gallic sense of fun. Unlike previous attempts to introduce humour into Christie-style whodunits, the comedy is in sympathy with the mystery/thriller elements of the film; it does not send-up its subject but instead serves to lighten the mood and deflect our attention from the clues that will identify the murderer. The Queen of Crime may not (as far as we know) have employed a gag in which a man in a kilt gets trapped above a subway vent (à la Marilyn Monroe), but there is still a fair smattering of humour in her books, and for once this film gets the comedy quotient about right.



As in their first Christie outing, Catherine Frot and André Dussollier have a natural comedy rapport and form what is unquestionably the most entertaining crime-fighting double act since Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Frot plays the Miss Marple role in the original novel, although her and Dussolier's characters are actually based on two of Christie's lesser known sleuths - the amiable partners in crime, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Assisted by some juicy dialogue, Frot and Dussollier both give a tour de force performance and revel in the comedy situations into which they are thrown (the highpoint being the aforementioned kilt and vent gag). Unlike Margaret Rutherford, who had an aura of Churchillian invincibility about her in her Miss Marple films, Frot's feisty heroine is much more vulnerable, and director Pascal Thomas skilfully uses this to beef up that one essential ingredient for a good thriller-whodunit: suspense. Assisting (and hindering) Frot and Dussollier in their investigations is a stellar cast which includes such talented performers as Hippolyte Girardot, Melvil Poupaud and the aptly named Claude Rich (the latter hilarious as an irascible chatelain who has the table manners of an industrial suction pump). Thomas scripts and directs the film with his usual aplomb and, with a little help from a superb cast (and a cheeky little mouse), delivers what is assuredly one of the most enjoyable Agatha Christie adaptations to date.