Bon Voyage

As the Nazis overwhelm France, a motley group of refugees converge on a ritzy hotel in Bordeaux: a movie star (Isabelle Adjani), a politician (Gérard Depardieu), two escaped convicts (Grégori Derangère and Yvan Attal), a student (Virginie Ledoyen) and a reporter (Peter Coyote). Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau keeps the action of this seriocomic melodrama crackling along at a lightning pace, polishes the look of the movie to a high gloss (via cinematographer Thierry Arbogast) and has a stellar cast in harness (Depardieu has never been more handsome, nor Adjani more stunningly youthful). So, why doesn’t it make a deeper impression? Too many cooks on the script, maybe (five plus Rappeneau); anyhow, the characters never become more than skin-deep, and the madcap action never quite engages our undivided attention. J.L.