Les Compères

Les Compères
Directed by	Francis Veber
Produced by	Jean-Claude Bourlat
Written by	Francis Veber
Starring	Gérard Depardieu Pierre Richard
Music by	Vladimir Cosma
Cinematography	Claude Agostini
Edited by	Marie-Sophie Dubus
Distributed by	European International
Release dates	23 November 1983 (1983-11-23) (France) 1 March 1984 (1984-03-01) (U.S.)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Les Compères (French: [le kɔ̄pɛʁ]; English title: ComDads) is a 1983 French comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber, and starring Gérard Depardieu, Pierre Richard and Anny Duperey. The film had 4,847,229 admissions in France.

In 1997, this movie was remade as Fathers' Day in the US. When it was released in the U.S. in the summer of 1984, it received negative reviews from many critics. Siskel & Ebert gave it two resounding "thumbs down" marks on their TV show, stating that the movie was "basically a French sitcom" and had too many stupid characters.

Plot

A teenaged boy has run away from home. His father is ineffective at finding him, so his mother contacts two former lovers from around the time her son was conceived, telling them both that the child is their son and asking them to look for him. One of them (Depardieu) is a tough journalist investigating the Mafia, while the other (Richard) is a timid former teacher who was on the verge of committing suicide when he received the telephone call. The two former boyfriends finally meet, and together they locate the son. They both argue who is really the father. In the end the son tells both Depardieu and Richard (while the other is out of earshot) that his mother thinks that he is the father. Thus, the son adopts both of them as his fathers, and also reconciles with his real father.

Cast

• Pierre Richard — Francois Pignon
• Gérard Depardieu — Jean Lucas
• Anny Duperey — Christine
• Michel Aumont — Paul
• Stephane Bierry — Tristan
• Roland Blanche — Jeannot
• Philippe Khorsand — Milan
• Jean-Jacques Scheffer — Ralph

Trivia

• The title translates literally as "The Accomplices." It is a pun, as the word "père" means "father" in French, and moreover "compère" would mean something like "co-father", "confather", with the same (Latin) prefix as the English con-/com-/co- in words like "confederate", "accomplice", "co-conspirator", etc.

External links

• Les Compères at IMDb
• Les Compères at Rotten Tomatoes
• Les Compères at AllMovie