Les Insaisissables (2000)
Directed by Christian Gion

Film Review

This slow-paced and largely predictable comedy from director Christian Gion is distinguished most by Daniel Prévost's surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of a bailiff who gets his just deserts.  Whilst let down by a meandering storyline and some shameless sentimentality, the film benefits from a talented cast who make the most of Gion's bland script, injecting some fleeting moments of hilarity and emotional depth.  However, it is painfully evident that both Prévost and his co-star, Dominique Guillo, deserve better material than this.

Film Synopsis

Maître Grimbert is a veteran bailiff who takes a sadistic delight in his profession.  He likes nothing better than to march into people's homes, an unopposable emblem of officialdom at its most heartless and efficient, and oversee the seizure of his victims' asserts.  His philosophy is simple.  If people get into debt and can't pay their way out of it they must be punished.  And there's nothing that Grimbert likes more than punishing people.  He would have made a superb Nazi stormtrooper.  His latest victim is an elderly widow named Madeleine.  She has a heart attack when she learns that the bailiffs have turned up to take away her prized possessions.  When he hears of this, Romain Langlois, a young estate agent who owes much to the old woman, is outraged.

Madeleine has always been there to help Romain when he is in financial difficulty, and now that she has problems of her own her protégé feels obliged to help her.  Joining forces with others in his predicament - Alain and Philippe - he sets out to play the dastardly Grimbert at his own nasty game.  Romain begins his offensive by duping his enemy into impounding goods from the wrong house.  Then he sets about making a meticulous study of the law, with the intention of completely undermining Grimbert as he goes about his loathsome day job.  Unfortunately, Maître Grimbert is not a man who is easily defeated, and if there's one thing worse than a bailiff it's a bailiff with a grudge, as Romain and his friends soon discover...