Many great critics cite this as a masterpiece, but I can’t lie to you — this movie ain’t all that. The first half is frilly, silly Ernst Lubitsch/Preston Sturgis goes-to-France style fun. Mix-ups, ironic twists and fake swooning. Definitely amusinc. Then things get dark and nasty. It is implausible, unearned and, ultimately, uninteresting. Like. . .imagine if the last half hour of “Ruthless People” became a weepy treatise on failed relationships and death? One is left with the question, “what’s up with the French?”
