The ComDads

Les Compères (1983)
Timing: 1:32 (92 min)
7.8/10
84 662
—
no scores
6.6/10
449
6.9/10
7400
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Release date
Country
Genre
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Website
Director
Scenario
Operator
Claude Agostini
Composer
Artist
Gérard Daoudal
Audition
Françoise Menidrey
Editing
Marie-Sophie Dubus
All team (18)

Short description

Christine Martin's teenage son has run away from home, and in her desperation she turns to two men from her past. She tells each of them separately that he is the boy's father, without either knowing about the other. François Pignon, a shy and emotionally fragile schoolteacher, and Jean Lucas, a forceful investigative journalist, each set out to find the missing youth, driven by their sudden sense of fatherhood.

Francis Veber directed and wrote the comedy, which was released in France in November 1983 and runs 92 minutes. It was his second film as director, following La Chèvre two years earlier. Pierre Richard plays François and Gérard Depardieu plays Jean, with Anny Duperey as Christine and Stéphane Bierry as her son Tristan. Veber also produced alongside his two leads. The two actors had appeared together in La Chèvre, and Depardieu and Richard were among the most popular French screen performers of the period.

The film has a rating of 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb from around 7,400 votes, and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 449 votes, indicating a generally favourable response from audiences across a modest but sustained viewership over the decades.

What's left behind the scenes

  • This is Francis Weber's third film as director.
  • "Les Compères" (roughly translated as "The Buddies" or "The Pals") attracted 4,847,229 viewers in cinemas, becoming the fourth most popular film in France in 1983.
  • The role of Inspector Verdie was played by Jacques Frantz, who subsequently focused primarily on voice acting and became the "French voice" of actors such as Robert De Niro and Mel Gibson.
  • This is the second film in the comedic trilogy starring Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu. The actors also starred together in "The Fugitives" (1981) and "The Underdogs" (1986).
  • This is the third joint project by director Francis Veber and composer Vladimir Cosma. Previously, they worked together on "Toy" (1976) and "The Underdogs" (1981).
  • In this film, Pierre Richard plays a character named François Pinion for the first time. He later reprises the role with the same name in Francis Veber's "The Fugitives" (1986). Jacques Villeret, Daniel Auteuil, Gad Elmaleh, and Patrick Timsit also played François Pinion in four other films by Veber: "The Dinner Game" (1998), "Chameleon" (2001), "The Valet" (2006), and "The Annoying" (2008).
  • In this film and in "The Fugitives" (1986) by the same Francis Veber, Gérard Depardieu's character is named Jean-Luc.

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