Director Laurent Tuel’s latest is a gorgeously shot Gallic road movie, following bike-nut Francois (Clovis Cornillac), as he cycles his own Tour de France, in a kooky bid to win back his wife. It’s a light-comedy drama, short on big laughs and lacking in major drama, but entertainingly breezy in the way only French movies seem to get away with.
Along his 3600km cycle-path of self-discovery, the pedal-powered hero meets an array of crazy characters, from nudists to rappers, and even a few real cycling heroes. Things click up a gear when the bicycle-bonkers Francois meets a dodgy trainer, (played by a devilish Bouli Lanners), who helps turn Francois’ two-wheeled quest into a media-fuelled cause célèbre. When the movie shirks the comic for the dramatic, with Francois forced to choose between completing his quest and being a good father to his son, it’s a lurch into sentimentality that makes for an uncomfortably bumpy ride.
Tour de Force has the kind of set-up that could have been hilarious, but somehow falls flat, the film’s inner-tube punctured by a blunted script that relies on clichéd caricatures, rather than complex characters. Still, it’s amazing just how much pleasure is to be had accompanying Francois on his eccentric journey whilst watching beautifully photographed French landscapes whizz by. The end result is fun, but emotionally flaccid, and I for one left the movie daydreaming about what could have been, had such a great story premise received the script and character development it deserves. C’est la vie.
