Banzai

Claude Berri, who directed some of the more interesting French comedies of the 1960s and 1970s (PAPA'S CINEMA; LE SEX SHOP; MAZEL TOV OU LE MARRIAGE; etc.) produced this hodgepodge and allowed Claude Zidi to direct it. Perhaps they should have traded hats. This one doesn't work. It's an ornate piece of fluff about a nerd (Coluche) who works for the Parisian version of Travelers Aid and gets into all sorts of scrapes attempting to help tourists in distress. The picture jets from Tunisia to New York to Hong Kong and never settles in to let us like it. In Africa, Coluche misguidedly frees an antigovernment official, which leads to a rebellion. In New York, he is taken...