Taxi

UK Release Date. 26 November 1999
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 29 mins
Director. Gérard Pirès
Cast. Marion Cotillard, Frédéric Diefenthal, Manuela Gourary, Samy Naceri, Emma Sjöberg.

Rating. 10%

Review.

With such a prodigious and eclectic body of work behind him, I do sometimes wonder if there's more than one Luc Besson in existence. The legendary French auteur has been involved in so many different projects over the years - as a writer, producer and director - with hugely varying degrees of success. From the highs of formative films such as The Big Blue, Nikita and Léon to more insipid recent offerings, The Family, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets and Lucy. And those are merely the films Besson has directed. 

Any film that opens with an extended sequence of a pizza-delivery man on a bright yellow scooter tearing round the boulevards of Marseille to Dick Dale's Misirlou - the distinctive surf-rock song used in Question Tarantino's Pulp Fiction - is brave, to say the least. It is is difficult to tell from this opening sequence if this is a homage to Pulp Fiction or a rather lazy rip-off. I have my suspicion.

Whilst working on The Fifth Element Luc Besson first came up with the idea of Taxi, a high-octane action-comedy. He apparently wrote the screenplay in 30 days... and it shows. Too busy to direct, Besson elected to produce the film instead and passed on directorial duties to Gérard Pirès (and subsequently Gérard Krawczyk).

A combination of the storyline's lack of depth and the generally uninspired direction, Taxi is yet another example of Besson (in this case writer and producer) producing an exercise in banality with eye-catching panache and distinctive style. For an action-comedy, there is little action to talk about. No memorable car chases. Even the appalling Lucy boasted a half-decent car chase. The comedy is apparently provided by moments of casual xenophobia and sexism, in ways which are played for laughs, but feel wholly inappropriate and uncomfortable to watch. 

Unbelievably, the film spawned four sequels... and a pitiful remake starring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon. However, I suspect I will not be investing any more time in the Taxi franchise.