Rachel (Fanny Ardant) is a cook working for wealthy Parisian landowners. At least, that’s what we believe during the first few minutes of The kings of the tracka police comedy that relies mainly on twists and turns and deceptive appearances. Because this graceful and voluble lady is rather the head of a gang of criminals. While she serves the wine, her sons Sam (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Jérémy (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and her grandson Nathan (Ben Attal) burgle, nylon stockings on their noses, the apartment opposite, which belongs to one of the guests that Rachel feeds.
However, when a malaise forces one of the guests to return to his home, triggering the alarm system, the crooks have to make their escape. Left behind, Jérémy seizes a painting by the painter Tamara de Lempicka that fascinates him, without knowing that it is of inestimable value. When they arrive, the police catch young Nathan, who is sentenced to three years in prison.
When he gets out, he is greeted by his grandmother and his father, Sam. Together, they go on the run in a minivan, determined to find Jeremy and the money from the painting. Joining this vaudeville trio is Céleste (Laetitia Dosch), a private detective hired by an insurance company, who will seduce Sam in an attempt to be the first to get her hands on the stolen painting.
In this first foray into comedy, Thierry Klifa (The Family Hero, A Lifetime Waiting for You) hits several home runs with this mischievous tale, full of twists and turns, that doesn’t take itself too seriously. First, by brilliantly exploiting the charm and chameleon talents of a high-caliber cast, dominated by an extravagant and absolutely delectable Fanny Ardant and a Mathieu Kassovitz who visibly takes pleasure in composing and making a complex and tortured character as endearing as he is comical.
The score by Thierry Klifa and his co-writer, Benoît Graffin, while certainly rhythmic, is essentially based on predictable or rehashed twists. However, it is difficult to deny one’s pleasure in these burlesque borrowings from the Daltons – and this desire to surprise and confuse the tracks, however simple it may be.
All the more so since the actors, fervently embracing their characters, give credibility to situations that are, to say the least, crazy by giving depth and emotion to the bonds that unite them, in addition to demonstrating an openness and tolerance that invite the spectator to adopt the same posture.
Despite some lengths, Thierry Klifa’s staging and the photography match the lively pace of the story, accurately highlighting the truth in the absurdity by capturing and sublimating the complicity and the unease that play out between the members of this family of happy and likeable thieves.
Thierry Klifa celebrates this vaudeville-esque film-spectacle, which shines the spotlight on those who give it substance, and distributes winks, jokes and touching moments which burst on the palate like the bubbles of a cheap sparkling wine which gives, at times, the blessed illusion of champagne.