Untouchable

Phillipe (Francois Cluzet, a dead ringer for Dustin Hoffman) has recently been dealt a bad hand; following the death of his wife from a terminal illness, he is then paralyzed from the neck down in a paragliding accident. Luckily, he also happens to be a multi-millionaire, so he can afford the best medical help money can buy. After a string of uptight, emotionless personal assistants have come and gone, Phillipe crosses paths with Driss (Omar Sy), a young man from the Parisian projects who has just been released from jail. Driss' lack of sympathy, fake or otherwise, makes for a refreshing change, and so Phillipe hires him as his new assistant, beginning an unlikely friendship between two couldn't-be-more-opposite men.

It's easy to see why Untouchable has been France's biggest box office hit of all time, as it tells its true life story very well, with subtle direction and fantastic turns from its two leads, without ever descending fully into out and out cliché. Despite his condition, Phillipe doesn't have a scene where he complains about his quadriplegia; instead he lives his life with dignity, aware of but never allowing himself to be limited by his injury. The same goes for Driss, as his home life includes poverty, being a war refugee, and a younger brother involved with a drug gang (the only time the film truly drops the story-telling ball is when dealing with this last issue), but again, Driss just deals with these problems, instead of having the pre-requisite monologue about how awful his life is.

Despite these potentially depressing topics, the movie is hugely entertaining, and for the most part, very funny. Scenes with Phillipe showing Driss the world of art, classical music and the opera go head-to-head with Driss opening Phillipe's world to the possibilities of 70's funk, marijuana and driving very, very fast. Untouchable is far from perfect; it's totally unoriginal, overly sugary-sweet, and at times completely unrealistic. However, you'll still leave the screen with a giant grin plastered on your face.