Quentin Dupieux’s gift for surreal comedy is in full bloom in this nutty tale of heroes named after tobacco’s toxic components.
As befits its name, the Tobacco Force is an unusual superteam: Its five Power Rangers-type members harness the “negative energy” of tobacco to fight evil, and they are named after some of cigarette smoke’s toxic components, like Méthanol (Vincent Lacoste), Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier) and Benzène (Gilles Lellouche).
Welcome back to the zany world of Quentin Dupieux, a French director who cranks out (his previous film, the time-travel fable “Incredible But True,” came out just months ago) low-budget absurdist comedies with preposterous premises that he always takes at face value, no matter how demented. His latest might be his funniest yet, as the worn-out Tobacco Force must attend a retreat to rebuild its team spirit before facing the galactic menace Lézardin (Benoît Poelvoorde).
Instead of building to a giant battle, Dupieux, as is his wont, goes off on multiple detours as the characters — including a random little girl and a barracuda fished from a nearby lake — take turns telling scary, often gory stories by a campfire. Those culminate with a ghoulish tale in which a woman (the comedian Blanche Gardin) keeps up a conversation with her nephew as he slowly gets absorbed into — hush, sharing causes spoiling.
As if this weren’t enough, the force’s female members are distracted by their boss, a womanizing rat. That is not a euphemism, by the way: Didier actually is a giant rodent, portrayed by a mangy puppet (voiced by Alain Chabat). You will not forget the sight of him making out with his latest conquest.
Smoking Causes Coughing
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
