The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther is a comedy-mystery in which the coach of the French national football team is killed at the stadium just as a match ends, and a ring set with the famous Pink Panther diamond is taken from him. Chief Inspector Dreyfus, who wants the case for himself, puts the clumsy Jacques Clouseau on it instead. Clouseau works the investigation with his assistant Ponton, while his superior watches from the sidelines. A pop star, a footballer and a witness who speaks only Chinese are among those in the picture as the inquiry unfolds.

Shawn Levy directed the film, the fifth of the seventeen features he has made in chronological order, arriving between Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Steve Martin, who plays Clouseau, wrote the screenplay with Len Blum, and Robert Simonds produced. Jean Reno appears as Ponton, Kevin Kline as Dreyfus, Beyoncé as Xania, Emily Mortimer as Nicole and Henry Czerny as Yuri, among seventy-two credited cast members and 169 credited crew.

Released in February 2006, the film cost about 65 million dollars and took roughly 159 million dollars worldwide, a return well above its outlay. Audiences are divided: on IMDb it sits at 5.7 out of 10 from around 98,000 votes, and on TMDB at 5.9 out of 10 from about 2,200 votes. A critics' rating of 4.5 out of 10 from 142 reviews places professional response below even the moderate audience scores.