The Diva's review of
The Pink Panther (2006)

The coach of the French national soccer team (Jason Statham in a cameo) has been killed and lies dead of a poison dart on the field. The suspect could be anyone from one of 50,000 fans; the Chinese; a rival coach; or even his girlfriend – Xania (Beyoncé Knowles) an international singing sensation. The reason? A huge and bawdy ring called the Pink Panther – the worlds largest pink diamond.

The case lands in the lap of Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kevin Kline). Dreyfus has what he believes to be an excellent idea. He will assign the worse possible detective to the case who will surely fail to solve the case, and then he will come behind him and solve it. Once Dreyfus solves it, he will be showered with an award and a promotion. He finds the most bumbling officer in all of France is Clouseau (Steve Martin).

Dreyfus promotes Clouseau and assign him he case and assistant in the form of Gendarme Gilbert Ponton (Jean Reno). As expected, Clouseau makes one mistake after another and yet, with each screw-up he is able to persevere. But will he be able to solve the case or is he just too inept for his own good?

It’s some late night of some month, all that is remembered is that it’s 1980 and there is a lot of laughing coming from the Grandma’s room. Two distinct laughs. That of the grandma and that of the 10 year-old who should have been asleep 4 hours prior. Drunk on ginapple – a mixture of Ginger ale and apple juice – drunk on laughter and drunk on love, the two conspire to watch the movie and not get caught. They believe that by laughing in the pillows, the mother will not hear them and question why the child is up at 12 a.m. watching The Pink Panther. But the mother hears everything and pretends to hear nothing. But the grandmother and child don’t know that. They really believe they are getting away with something as the howl in their pillows. It was one of the best times of the child’s life. A memory she treasures to this day.

This memory poses a dilemma for me. Were the original movies good to begin with? Am I an elitist and automatically negatively biased towards this one? Try as I might, I can not look at the originals with a critical eye. I still laugh at the same places I still shake my head at the same places. I think I can safely say however, that this outing did not live up to the original.

If anyone could have done it, I had confidence in Steve Martin. I’m a huge fan of his work. I don’t think that he was awful, I just think that Sellers was so great that it is clear to me that Clouseau should live in our memories. I won’t lay fault on the plot as it seemed ridiculous enough to pass for a normal Pink Panther plot. If I had to find any individual fault, I’d have to unfortunately point at Beyoncé. She was stilted and bland and if she messes up Dreamgirls like that I’m too through. There is a LOT riding on Dreamgirls and she has got to get it together. I’m very serious about this.

In the end, I can’t recommend this movie. The plot can be dumb if all the acting is on par. The acting can be bad if the story is so well written hat you laugh too much to notice the bad acting. Unfortunately none of these elements gelled .

A pet peeve of mine? Language. If you are going to pretend to be French can you please say “France” and “Paris” like the French folks do? Please?

Save your money.

3BC Ratings