Hallelujah! (2009)

the audience applauded

Expected more

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This movie is great. The producer of the film is Luc Beson, and it is perhaps his talent that makes it a quite a masterpiece. I think if this movie could be properly translated from French into English it could live the whole new second life among English audience. It deserves higher rating on your database. I would say it is not only French humor that makes it worth to see. The focus on human values that are possessed by people hunted by their criminal background and resulting situations where they need to decide about doing good of evil, played in a comedy format, makes it one of the best films produced by French cinematography in the last 5 years. Unfortunately the fact that Luc Beson was a contributor to this film, is not mentioned on your database profile. It would definitely create much mo interest for general audience to see one of the best French movies made lately.

SYNOPSIS: Newly released from prison, a thief is anxious to recover his stolen loot. But others are also anxious to lay their hands on the jewels. So with the help of his younger brother (a Catholic priest), he dresses himself in priestly clothes and decides to hide out in a small hamlet in the Ardèche. Fortuitously, the parish priest has just passed away, so the villagers naturally assume the thief is a replacement sent by the bishop. With the prompting of the altar boy, all goes well for the thief at first, but problems develop. One is the arrival of the real replacement priest. Another is the backsliding of the thief's good-hearted but weak-willed brother, who cashes the jewels but lets the money go to his head.COMMENT: When you have a clever script that depends to an inordinate degree on the phrase, "but it just so happens", you have to make quite extraordinary efforts to disguise this fact or, at the very least, hide it away. In my experience, very few writers, actors and directors are capable of doing this, but it just so happens that Jean-Marie Bigard is the writer-actor who hits the jackpot here, and Roger Delattre is the astute director who manages to bring it off. And it all happens thanks to superb pacing that not only makes the jokes come thick and fast, but brilliant scripting that absolutely crowds the screen with cameos, and even better still, action! The audience is given no time to think, no time to ponder. Blink and you'll miss an arresting image. Turn your head and you'll lose touch with the plot. Pay attention to your date and you'll wonder why she and the rest of the audience are laughing so heartily.As might be expected, Bigard has written a great role for himself. As a result, his is indeed a most striking presence. All the same, the support cast has not been neglected. Doudi has at least two or three scenes in which he wipes out some formidable opposition from the Mafia boss and a bevy of beautiful girls.Produced on a grand scale, Le Missionnaire is at once a feast for the eyes, a constant titillation of the funny-bone and a truly emotional message for the heart. The film of the year, in my opinion!

my french is very limited, thus there might have been much humour that i didn't understand, but i feel this film was not made as a comedy but rather more as a satire. there were many ironies going on in the show: jailbird becoming priest, even bettering others in the job; priest becoming attracted to forces in materialism and the secular world; police and priest both see alcohol and sex as part of life and commoners empathising with that; and finally the irony of the neverending disputes of religions as opposed to how love could unite disparate beliefs. those who often seek divine help, hardly know that those who have genuine solutions to their problems are people not much different from them, perhaps merely more confident.

I think that people that don't speak or understand French should not watch this movie because French films are made to watch in French. I think people should stop rating this film and just not watch French movies if they watch it English. I'm warning you if you watch this film in English, it will loose it's every aspect it's worth watching for. The difference between English and French films is that even though you can add French or English dubs to a movie, you can translate a movie from one language to another, but you can never translate everything. I've watched French films in English, there's no point because it's a completely different film. This film is funny,sarcastic, slightly violent but in a funny way and full of French jokes which is impossible to translate to English. So I suggest for people not to watch this film unless they speak and understand perfectly the French language. This movie deserves more than it was rated.