The Pink Panther 2
US 2009
Starring: Steve Martin, Jean Reno,
John Cleese
Director: Harald Zwart
THERE is much to dismiss about The Pink Panther 2, not in any sense a remake of writer-director Blake Edwards’ second Inspector Clouseau film, A Shot in the Dark, but more of Steve Martin’s racially-insensitive yet strangely endearing slapstick, as seen in the 2006 remake, The Pink Panther.
Taking on the role immortalised by Peter Sellers, Martin brought to it his sense of PG-rated physical comedy and a touching innocence, transcending mere imitation. The disappointment of both the 2006 and the latest film is that the slapstick is less than inspired. Martin has been capable of so much more in the past. Here, he is even reunited with his All of Me co-star, Lily Tomlin, who plays a police advisor trying to teach Clouseau to be more PC. I found myself waiting for the inevitable joke: “I’m not a PC, I’m an inspector.” I even waited for: “I’m not PC, I use a Mac.” But the film’s jokes don’t rise even to this low standard.
The reference to political correctness is timely because it puts The Pink Panther 2 in the same cultural debate as Richard Bean’s National Theatre play, England People Very Nice, which parades a series of cultural stereotypes to show racism in England as embodied by various nationalities. Martin is playing a Frenchman as a buffoon insensitive to convention and derided as a national disgrace.
We also have John Cleese (far too old to be banging his head against the wall, but doing here for anyone who might not have seen Fawlty Towers) as a Frenchman, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (stepping into Kevin Kline’s shoes and Herbert Lom’s before him). Cuban-American Andy Garcia plays an Italian detective, part of a so-called “Dream Team” investigating a series of art thefts, and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan playing no nationality whatsoever is Sonia, an expert in thefts perpetrated by the villain known as The Tornado.
You could say that the film is an international disgrace, given the disproportionate ratio of talent to laughs. When Martin is seen on top of a rolling globe in a nod to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, it is certainly no respecter of iconic film imagery. However, Martin’s racial offensiveness is cancelled out by Jean Reno’s portrayal of Ponton, Clouseau’s underling. Ponton is saddled with a sub-plot about putting his job before his family, but for the most part Reno enforces a sense of French dignity.
Stereotypes are undoubtedly offensive in a context that does not ask the audience to look beyond them. The makers of The Pink Panther 2 (and I bracket together director Harald Zwart, producer Robert Simonds and Martin himself, who shares a writing credit) demonstrate their artificial nature. In both films, Martin shows a spark of intelligence within Clouseau that solves the case. The inspector might inadvertently impersonate the Pope and burn down a restaurant twice, but he has his own system. If only the movie produced some belly laughs, instead of references to the 2006 film and Martin dangling two children out of a window, which incidentally resembles the publicity image for his 1989 film, Parenthood.
Patrick Mulcahy
