Les doigts croches

Les doigts croches (Ken Scott, 2009)

This is Ken Scott's first directorial effort after his work as a screenwriter for Maurice Richard and La grande séduction. With an all Québécois star cast of Roy Dupuis(Maurice Richard), Patrice Robitaille (Québec-Montréal), Claude Legault (Les 7 jours du Talion, 10 1/2), Jean-Pierre Bergeron, Paolo Noël, and Aure Atika, Les doigts croches is one of the most under appreciated comedies of 2009. Charles (Roy Dupuis) wants to do the robbery of the century with his old time chums. Their plan is perfect, but they must get caught the night of the robbery except one of them. When the rest gets out of jail to get their share, they have two conditions: first to walk the entire Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle road and to have changed. They must become honest citizens in the face of the law.

This off-beat film of low-key comedy gives a fresh breath to the genre that defines itself by pedestrian scatological and sometimes penises jokes only. Ken Scott writes his scripts with keen humor and a naive charm of innocence and down to earth characters. The fauna of robbers itself could have made a hilarious cast. However, Ken Scott uses every one of them with intelligence and respect of his own style of writing.

The main problem of Scott's script might be the lack of dramatic turn of events when the gang does its pilgrimage in Spain. To have tighten its script and the interactions between the characters could have helped to raise the bar and attain a higher level of acheivment. But overall, Les doigts croches remains one of the most successful comedies made in Québec with a superb cast of loveable losers.