You know you’re watching a Quentin Dupieux film when the opening scene starts of with a nearly naked man, wearing a bright pair of neon orange underpants, conducting a full orchestra arrangement on the outskirts of a forest. You also know that this isn’t your typical Quentin Dupieux film, when the rest of the movie is largely tamed in comparison. Ah yes, the joys of french cinema. The wild expectations never really match the end product, do they? Au Poste!, or better known in English as Keep An Eye Out, is a delightful little french comedy, with some genuinely hilarious moments, that unfortunately doesn’t reach the heights of Dupieux’s other absurdist projects. For starter’s, there’s no killer tires nor psychosomatic dog lovers. Instead, there’s a cliched comedic duo and some occasionally fun backdrop characters.
What I feel like what Dupieux got right here was the comedic timing. This film is an extraordinary feat in line delivery and pace. Each joke and quip moved at a perfect momentum, both giving enough time for the audience to have a quick little laugh, and to not keep the film from dragging. With it’s tight run time of 70 minutes, the amount of humor used here was more than sufficient than what the end product needed. The best part about all this? It worked perfectly in conjunction with my own personal ironic sense of humor. This film is genuinely fucking funny!
Atlas though, sometimes the best of comedies fail with one certain downfall. The plot. Just like many previous french-comedies, the actual story-line in Keep An Eye Out was largely boring and uninteresting. Not even the Dupieux styled twist at the end (which admittedly had some really clever production design to go with it) could save one of the most lackluster and uninspired story-lines put to film in 2018. There’s so much things you can do with an interrogation scene outline, and yet, neither Dupieux and his team thought of something that was at least better than average.
Keep An Eye Out is a fine, fun film. You’ll have a good laugh, guaranteed. But if you’re looking for something that will provoke you or particularly spark interest, this is not to place to look. This is a film meant to entertain, and that’s all there is to it. It’s a slightly forgettable yet enjoyable film that would be perfect for one hell of a family movie night. Actually, scratch that. I’m not sure watching a film about murder, which has plenty of blood and injury, is the best flick to watch with the fam.
Keep An Eye Out Will Be Released In Select Canadian French Cinemas on October 12th
On The Clock 