Review of French Kiss (1995) by Stuart K — 19 Jun 2012

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983) and Grand Canyon (1991)), this is a sweet and silly romantic comedy that has a good cast and is a good travelogue for France. It's female lead gives one her best performances, while Kasdan's regular leading man is quite convincing as a wheeling-dealing Frenchman.

It's an underrated romantic comedy too. Kate (Meg Ryan) is engaged to Canadian Charlie (Timothy Hutton) who is away on a business trip to Paris, but when Kate hears he's fallen in love with Juliette (Susan Anbeh), and he won't be coming back.

However, she plans to fly over to win him back, even though she hates flying and the French, but it's not going to get any better when she's seated next to crude, indifferent thief Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline).

Luc puts a vine with a stolen necklace inside in Kate's bag, but nothing goes to plan when they're separated at the airport and Kate's bags are stolen. So, Luc ends up following Kate all the way to Cannes, where she's hoping to win Charlie back, while Luc is obsessed with the necklace he smuggled through the customs and getting it back.

It's got some very funny moments, and Ryan and Kline have a weird funny chemistry between them, it's the same old romantic comedy formula, where two people who can't stand each other end up falling in love, but it manages to work somehow, plus the great Jean Reno cameos as a cop on Kline's tail.