Mammuth
One of France’s biggest box office successes of the year and nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, MAMMUTH, from provocateur French directors Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine (Louise-Michel, Aaltra), is an outrageously funny and subversive tale of one man’s attempt to secure his state pension, whilst facing the prospect of retirement and the inevitability of growing old in the modern world.
2.9 out of 5 based on 12 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Certificate |
|
| Genre |
Foreign, Comedy |
| Director |
Gustave de Kervern et Benoît Delépine |
| Cast |
Yolande Moreau, Isabelle Adjani, Benoît Poelvoorde, Miss Ming Gérard Depardieu |
| Studio |
Axiom Films |
| Release Date |
June 2011 |
| Running Time |
92 mins |
| |
One of France’s biggest box office successes of the year and nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, MAMMUTH, from provocateur French directors Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine (Louise-Michel, Aaltra), is an outrageously funny and subversive tale of one man’s attempt to secure his state pension, whilst facing the prospect of retirement and the inevitability of growing old in the modern world.
Reviews
The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“The black comedies of Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine combine intense Frenchness with a kind of Anglo-American comedy-sensibility, something of Adam McKay or Ricky Gervais. Mammuth is their best yet: a funny, sad and weird road movie starring Gérard Depardieu in a pungent role.”
02/06/2011
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The Independent on Sunday
Jonathan Romney
“Mammuth is too soft-centred to be Delépine and Kervern at their best (for that, seek out their demented Aaltra, a road movie with wheelchairs). But the film is a raucously anti-narcissistic triumph for its star, who shows that there's still a magnificent cheval de guerre lying dormant inside the ragged old pantomime horse.”
05/06/2011
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Time Out
David Jenkins
“Like an X-rated Mr Bean written by Charles Bukowski, the gauche humour of Mammuth camouflages a sweet torch song to the struggles of the working class in the face of private- and public-sector indifference. ”
02/06/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
“Depardieu, now the size of a beached whale, exudes sadness as he meets a succession of fellow eccentrics while pursuing his hopeless task. The earlier film [Aaltra] was in elegant black-and-white; this one is in grainy, almost granulated, colour and is intermittently very funny.”
05/06/2011
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Empire Magazine
David Parkinson
“Depardieu dominates, as the offbeat humour drifts occasionally into the surreal and poignant. The denouement misfires, but this is an affectionate and anarchic meditation on our inability to stem the inexorable passage of time.”
11/06/2011
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The Evening Standard
Derek Malcolm
“It is often quite offbeat, anarchic stuff about how time and age tend to betray us. But the star of the film, lifting his considerable weight off the saddle and his hands in the air, lends optimism to it all, and considerable acting skill as well.”
03/06/2011
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“Depardieu strides on, supreme, oblivious and is yet again the overmastering reason to see a film that without him would be masterless and quickly, in the mind, over.”
02/06/2011
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Total Film
Tom Dawson
“There aren’t as many belly laughs as in the directors’ Louise-Michel but Depardieu brings a touching vulnerability to Serge.”
25/05/2011
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Variety
Jay Weissberg
“... Unsatisfying if occasionally amusing hybrid ...”
21/02/2010
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The Times
Wendy Ide
“As it progresses, this droll road movie becomes increasingly fractured. It’s like a series of ragged vignettes that scores more misses than hits.”
03/06/2011
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“It is a film by Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern, whose eccentric deadpan humour usually has an oppressive air of self-satisfaction. This effort is no exception, and even Depardieu’s rough-edged sweetness can’t do much to lighten it.”
05/06/2011
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“Directors Delepine and Kervern have a taste for the weird, though the scene in which Depardieu engages in mutual masturbation with an old man is one I'd rather have missed.”
03/06/2011
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