Film / La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon

In English, The Mad Tale of Max and Léon.

September 3rd 1939, France enters the war against Germany. The government immediately starts drafting able young men.In the town of Mâcon, Max (David Marsais) and Léon (Grégoire Ludig) enjoy a strong reputation as "good-for-nothings". They try to evade the draft, in vain. The military life on the frontlines does not suit them in the least, and they even attempt to mutilate each other to be sent home, only manageing to shoot their superior, Adjudant Pichon (Julien Pestel), who already could not stand them. When France is defeated, they only have one idea in mind: returning home as fast as possible.But their attempts to make it back to Mâcon are doomed to fail. In a chain of misunderstandings, the two friends set on an incredible journey. Their adventure leads them through occupied France, to the United Kingdom, and all the way to Syria.

The first feature-length movie of the Palmashow comedy duo, the movie takes many elements from their skits to incorporate them into a broader story.

Audiences were generally pleased by the movie, although some critics thought that the web comedy style did not translate very well on the big screen.

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Tropes in this work:

• Action Girl: Alice Marchal. She serves in the military under her father's command, and is the best shot of La Résistance. In the end, she's the one to shoot Célestin dead.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Sarah, who looks like a walking porcelain doll. That said, in her first scene she takes out the heroes' kneecaps and shrieks the entire way through her escape from the Gestapo.
• Affably Evil: Célestin, the head of the propaganda department of Les Collaborateurs. He's a leacherous asshole who ticks off all the discriminations you can think off, but he's otherwise a fun and friendly guy.
• Agent Peacock: Commanders Beaulieu and especially Poulain are quick to surrender, have Insane Troll Logic and are... happy to strip down when Mugged for Disguise. However, they're apparently war heroes and the crowning jewels of the French army.
• And the Adventure Continues: After their Character Development, Max and Léon decide to reenlist in the army. During the final scene of the movie, they're on a ship towards the beaches of Normandy.
• Anti-Villain: Eugène, who works at the propaganda department. He's a shy, sweet guy, a bit of an Ascended Fanboy for Léon and Max. When La Résistance storms the place in the climax, he's excited to join them.
• Asshole Victim: Pichon. The man only wanted friendship, and to do his duty for his country. But he also, like, started sending people to death camps at one point.
• Author Appeal: The Palmashow love their Black Comedy, Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists, and surprisingly wholesome endings.
• Badass and Child Duo: By the end of the movie, Max and Sarah. It takes him a while to get there, though.
• Battle Couple: At the end of the movie, Léon and Alice blow up the Nazi kommandantur together.
• Bait-and-Switch: The movie begins with a touching friendship montage of two little boys growing up together as friends. Turns out they're not Max and Léon, just random kids from their town.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • When Max and Léon return to visit Mme Dormeuil, who helped them escape the Germans in 1941, they see that her neighbor sold her off to the Gestapo, and is keeping an eye on her granddaughter Sarah until they come back for her. While there's nothing they can do for the old lady, they take it upon themselves to save the child, instead of running away easily.
  • Max and Léon help their former regiment escape German imprisonment. The men are able to build a new life in Switzerland, and they agree to take Sarah in when Max and Léon reenlist.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Max and Léon's regiment breaks into a full musical number to explain to the German soldiers that French people are awful and that they shouldn't want to imprison them on German territory.
  • Justified Trope: This is part of the Author Appeal. Many of the Palmashow's skits are in song format, and they wanted this to be reflected in their movie.
• Black Comedy: Typical of the Palmashow humor. The most tongue-in-cheek moment has to be when they give Sarah the prototype of her own yellow star to draw on, and praise her for coloring within the lines.
• Call-Back: When the two protagonists first hit the frontlines, they are the only soldiers in their regiment who don't receive any letters. In the last scene, Léon is reading a letter they received from Sarah.
• Call-Forward: Of the Black Comedy kind.
  Léon: You have a beautiful little country. I see a bright future for Syria.
• The Casanova: Léon, initially.
• Character Check: Even after Léon starts officially dating Alice, he still takes a second out of his day to oggle at passing girls' butts.
• Character Development: Max and Léon start off as Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists, but over the years of the war, become heroic resistants, save many innocent lives, and become defenders of the oppressed. Léon, who was The Casanova, commits to a relationship, and Max, who Would Hurt a Child, becomes a Parental Substitute.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Played With all over the film. Max and Léon are certainly not the best defense against this trope, and Les Collaborateurs are a major part of the plot; but La Résistance, its impact on the Battle of France and the lives they saved at Played Straight.
  • Sarah's grandmother berates Max and Léon for their cowardice, saying that the French army and war effort during WWI was something else. She tells them to make sure not to get caught as they desert, not so they will not be killed, but so they don't shame France.
• Chippendales Dancers: Commander Poulain is... especially eager to undress when he is Mugged for Disguise.
• Code Name: In full use in La Résistance, who all name themselves after animals. Renard^note Fox is the head of the local group. Max and Léon eventually receive the names Cheval de Nuit^note Night Horse and Aigle Perçant^note Sharp Eagle, which Alice considers Embarrassing Nickname.
• Les Collaborateurs: Célestin, who is at the head of the propaganda department of the Vichy regime. In typical Black Comedy style, Max and Léon start working for him undercover and are embarrassingly good at it.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • When Max and Léon hide in a random building to escape the Gestapo with Sarah, they point out there's a nice, clinical smell in the air, and that they must be in a convent. They're in a gay club.
  • Colonel Marchal, Alice's father, is convinced that Max is dating his daughter instead of Léon for some reason. Even when Alice and Léon become an Official Couple, he still doesn't catch on.
  • While in London, Max and Léon drunkenly walk into the BBC studios and start spewing stupid codes, which La Résistance in France understands as "Blow up all the bridges". This "brilliant military initiative" gets them sent as spies to Syria.
• Doorstop Baby: Max and Léon were abandoned by their respective mothers on the doorstep of a church on the same night.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Max and Léon dress four times, no less, as German soldiers, militiamen and SS, the first time involving Mugged for Disguise. The fourth is actually the reason why they tell their story to bar attendees after being caught in SS uniforms, and have to explain why.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • Alice considers that Max and Léon's résistance code names are this.
  • Pichon calls himself Pipou at one point. Even though the man is dying in their arms, Max and Léon can't help but snicker.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: As Max and Léon tell their story, a really cool guy at one point emerges from the shadow in a corner of the bar to save them from the mob.
  • Subverted: Max and Léon are offended that he'd derail their story with one of his own and all the other patrons roll their eyes at hearing him tell it again. He goes back into the shadow.
• Friend to All Children: Initially averted. When the heroes meet Sarah, she takes out their kneecaps with a wrench.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • Max and Léon initially agree to only stay in England disguised as Poulain and Beaulieu for a few days to regain some strength, and then head home. Cut to them in a London pub months later.
  • Colonel Marchal, having been deceived for months by Max and Léon, claims that they must be masters of lying and disguise. Cut to them making fools of themselves haggling for local clothes at the marketplace in Damascus.
  • When Max and Léon return to Madame Dormeuil's store, her neighbor has sold them off to the Gestapo and is keeping an eye on Sarah until they come back. A priest runs in, shocked... that he's too late for the pillaging of the shop. Cut to Max and Léon wearing their clothes after knocking them out.
• Given Name Reveal: Bilal's daughter, whom Max calls his "desert star" and who despises colonizers, is called Dominique.
• Glory Hound: Pichon ; this is what leads him to try and force a pointless last stand against the German invaders, and then to collaborate with the Nazis.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Germans Nazis. The real antagonists of the movie at Les Collaborateurs of the Vichy regime, who claimed to be all about free France but worked with the Nazis.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Léon has a knack for visual storytelling, which gets him a job (undercover) in the propaganda department of Les Collaborateurs. At the end of the movie, he starts working as a photographer.
  • The two SS soldiers on Sarah's tracks follow her, along with Max and Léon, into a gay bar. When they notice where they are, they start passionately making out.
• Historical Hilarity: A comedy set during WWII? Indeed, despite it involve Mood Whiplash (after Max and Léon witness an execution, or hear that Sarah's grandmother was arrested, notably).
• How We Got Here: Max and Léon are caught by bar attendees dressed as nazis dignitaries and have to explain why. They need the first hour of the movie (told in flash-backs) for that.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!:
  Célestin: I'm with the winners. Today, it's the Nazis. If it changes tomorrow, I'll adapt.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Played for Laughs. The Freudian Excuse Pichon gives as he dies: he claims he just wanted to be a part of Max and Léon's group. He clearly didn't, from his behavior, but it's for the sake of the drama.
• Informed Judaism: Sarah, except for her Hebraic name. Then again, she's a five year old child who is separated from her family, and it wouldn't take the Gestapo more than an informed trope to put her on a train.
• Insistent Terminology: André's code name is Weasel, not Squirrel.
  André: You go tell a weasel it's the same as a squirrel, see what it does to you.
• Karma Houdini: Max and Léon are deserters who get caught in an ever growing Snowball Lie, playing both sides to make it out unscathed. Despite being in a position to be executed both by La Résistance and the army, both choose to make use of them instead, as spies and as soldiers.
• Morality Pet: Max and Léon start becoming better people in Syria, but it really becomes a major development after they decide to save Sarah from the Gestapo.
• Mugged for Disguise: Twice: Sarah's grandma shoot two German soldiers and order Max and Léon to put their uniforms on. Two years later and still in the grandma's shop, Max and Léon knock out a railroader and a priest to put their clothes on and run away with Sarah, who just escaped being arrested.
• Never Mess with Granny: Madame Dormeuil, Sarah's grandmother, who shelters runaway soldiers, and shoots German invaders to keep them out of her shop. She can't do much when the SS come for her, however.
• Once More, with Clarity: After saving Bilal and his daughter from being arrested, Max and Léon masterfully fend off the Germans and escape on a magic carpet... wait, no, actually they just accidentally took a massive amount of drugs and it's all they can do to stay awake while Bilal and his daughter do the work.
• Papa Wolf: Max, after his Promotion to Parent. During the climax, La Résistance is captured, including Sarah, and Max is clearly going to storm the kommandantur to save her first.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Mercifully averted, though teased. When Max and Léon are captured by the Nazis and put in a prisonner camp, they start arguing and dropping truth bombs on each other. Their conflict is quickly stopped when the threat of being sent to a German camp arises, at which point they immediately start working together again.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: As you'd expect from Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists in The '40s, Max and Léon have their sexist, racist and homophobic moments. By the end of the movie, they Took a Level in Kindness after witnessing the civil horrors of WWII, but are still not quite there.
  Célestin: Don't you believe they're all gonna eat us? The Communists, the Gypsies, the Jews, the Chinks?
  Max: No, I don't. If you went and had a drink with them, you'd see they're really nice. Well, except Arabs don't drink booze.
  Léon: Yeah, and the Jews, they stick together, they get offended easily... Well, yeah, they're Jewish! Tough luck! At least they know how to party! And the Chinks! There's nothing nicer than a Chink! Don't be so ignorant!
• Porn Stache: In era-appropriate fashion, Léon sports one at the beginning of the movie, which he has to shave off in the army.
• Promotion to Parent: Gradually for Max after he and Léon save Sarah from the Gestapo.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Can be discussed. Upon the defeat of France in 1941, Max and Léon's commander orders his men to desert instead of dying pointlessly in a Curb-Stomp Battle. He takes a bomb to the head within the minute.
• Rescue Romance: Léon and Alice's romance had been slowly budding all over the movie, but they finally become and Official Couple after he rescues her from the kommandantur.
  • Max tries to invoke this with Dominique after he knocks out a man who wanted to arrest her, but they don't have the time to make it happen.
• La Résistance: Max and Léon eventually join them as spies, unwillingly at first, but the real change that they are able to make, and real lives they are able to save, by snatching intel from inside makes them experience Character Development - by the end of the movie, they are genuine Résistants.
• Running Gag:
  • Max and Léon asking each other how much they'd ask to be in a situation.
  • Everyone, not just Colonel Marchal, thinks Alice just as better chemistry with Max than with Léon.
  • Max and Léon repeatedly mugging people for their clothes.
• Sacrificial Lion: Sarah's grandmother berates Max and Léon for their cowardice, but still agrees to hide them from the German soldiers, even shooting two of them dead. When the pair returns to her shop, they find out she has been taken by the Gestapo, who is coming back for the little girl unless someone does something.
• Shot in the Ass: The pair accidentally shoots Adjudant Pichon in the butt while trying to mutilate themselves. Treated as an Amusing Injury.
• Shout-Out:
  • The famous Carglass commercial is parodied as a pro-denunciation propaganda video.
  • The famous Bosch slogan "It's good, it's nice, it's Bosch" is used in the same way.
• Side Bet: Max and Léon are always asking each other how much money they'd ask to be in a certain situation.
  • Used as a Brick Joke twice: when they witness the civil horrors of WWII, and at the end of the movie.
  Max, sternly: How much would you take to be a Jew, a Communist, a homosexual or a Gypsy right now?
  Max, during D-Day: How much would you take to relive this every single day?
  Léon: As long as I'm with you? I'll do it for free.
• Take That!:
  Max: Will you make sure [Sarah]'s safe?
  Renard: I'll send her to the nuns.
  Max: I said safe, Michel.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: During the finale, Célestin tries to shoot Max and Léon, but his gun is out of bullets, so he throws it at Léon's head instead.
• Tsundere: Alice, who spends most of her screentime protesting that she's not interested in Léon in the most lustful way possible.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Max and Léon at the beginning of the movie and for a long while: they're cowards, they're mean-spirited, they're neck-deep in commonplace racism, sexism and homophobia. Léon is also The Casanova.
• Victory Is Boring: Max and Léon finally make it back to Mâcon. However, their former lives feel all the more hollow that everyone they knew is either dead, in hiding or fighting, and they've left a purpose and people they cared for behind by leaving La Résistance. They quickly decide to resume the fight.
• Would Hurt a Child: Downplayed. During Max and Léon's first moment on screen, they push two kids into a canal and ask if the water's warm, just because they were passing by.
• You Look Familiar: The majority of the cast have appeared before in Palmashow skits.