Film Reviews

Welcome to the Sticks

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Dany Boon
• Details: France / 106mins (12A).

In trying to please his demanding wife by putting in a transfer request to the south of France, Post Office administrator Phillippe Abrams's (Merad) plans come undone when he is accused of impersonating a 'handicapped person' when applying. As punishment, Abrams is transferred to Berques up north, which is the last place he wants to be. Kissing his family goodbye, Abrams makes the long trip north and does his best to settle in. Despite the 'cold' and the indecipherable accents, Abrams starts to like the place; so much so that he never wants to come home again. Welcome To The Sticks, I'm guessing, would be a lot funnier in French. Most of the gags seem to come from Merad's misunderstanding of the Berques accent and the filmmakers have gone to a lot of trouble of including this in the subtitles: they pronounce everything ending in 's' as 'sh'. Although thankful of that initially, this tact soon becomes tedious as a lot of the subtitles are incompressible. This wouldn't be so bad if the farcical comedy didn't move at such a breakneck pace with rapid-fire dialogue, but writer/director Boon (My Best Friend) is in such a hurry to get to the next line and the next scene (and finally end credits), that by the time we finally get to read the subtitle, it's gone. It's not all bad, with Merad delivering a quasi-Jim Carrey performance; but Welcome To The Sticks is just too much hard work and watching a comedy isn't supposed to be work at all.

Review by Gavin Burke