An interesting pairing of stories, this little flick manages to bring together seemingly different characters and story lines all in the backdrop of WWII and succeeds in tying them together without losing the audience. I was impressed by the depth portrayed by the different characters and also by how much I really felt I understood them and their motivations, even though the time spent on the development of each character was very limited. The outstanding acting abilities of the individuals involved with this picture are easily noted. A fun, stylized movie with a slew of comic moments and a bunch more head shaking events.

7/10

Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "Bon voyage" has a good plot. It focuses on a group of people traveling across Nazi-occupied France to deliver heavy water to England. It could've been a better movie had it developed the characters a little more. Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, and the rest of the cast all put in fine performances amid a pulse-pounding storyline. It's just that the characters are too thin for it to be any sort of masterpiece.

I guess that I can recommend the movie, even knowing that it's nothing great. The plot moves along at a smooth pace, keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole time. That and the performances are what I can recommend about the movie. Not much else. Louis Malle's "Au revoir, les enfants" is the truly worthwhile French movie about this period.

It's a unique film that can tackle a serious subject in a lightweight way without making it a black comedy. "Bon Voyage" is just such a film, from 2003. It stars the beautiful Isabelle Adjani, not as luminous and breathtaking perhaps as she was in Camille Claudel, but still a beauty, as an actress in constant need of help...from a man. Any man. Her victims include Gérard Depardieu, Grégori Derangère, and Peter Coyote.

It's wartime in Paris, and the Germans are en route. An actress, Viviane Denvers, as she enters her apartment, is assaulted by an old boyfriend. The two fight. In the next scene, she's calling another old boyfriend, Frederic Auger (Derangère) in the middle of the night, begging for help. Auger stumbles over to Viviane's apartment to find a dead man who fell over the stair rail as Viviane was fighting him off.

Frederic wants to call the police, but Vivane fears "scandal." They load the body into the victim's car and Frederic takes off to dump it somewhere. It's pouring rain and the windshield breaks. Unable to see, Frederic gets into an accident and is knocked out briefly; the trunk flies open. Well, the man is dead, okay, but he has a bullet in him. Thanks, Viviane.

Soon, Auger and another prisoner, Raoul (Yvan Attal) have escaped while the prisoners are being removed from Paris. En route to Bordeaux by train, they meet Camille, (Virginie Ledoyen). She is the assistant to a Professor Kopolski who is leaving France with important research, heavy water to make bombs, which he is trying to keep from the Germans.

Viviane and her new man, Jean-Etienne Beaufort (Depardieu), minister of state, are in Bordeaux as well, and the police are hunting for Auger. Meanwile everyone is trying to get somewhere else, and a journalist flirting with Viviane is not what he seems.

Despite showing the real chaos that ensues as people try to get out of Paris, the crowded trains, and the fear, "Bon Voyage" manages to be light and entertaining. Camille is attracted to Frederic; Frederic finds it hard to say no to Viviane; Raoul is attracted to Camille; the Nazis want the Professor's invention; and the minister of state is under Viviane's thumb.

Adjani is appropriately wide-eyed and innocent-acting, as if she's a tragic victim rather than the victimizer; the boyish Derangere is sincere and believable as he tries to help everyone; and Depardieu is effective as a smitten man with huge responsibilities who's having trouble concentrating, what with Viviane pulling him out of huge meetings.

Very entertaining and highly recommended.