Mammuth (Gustave de Kervern & Benoît Delépine, 2010)

The French duo de Kervern and Delépine, makers of hand-to-mouth budget black comedies laced with social comment, occupy a niche between Aki Kaurismäki and Shane Meadows. Their downtrodden characters stumble through life's inequities with a laconic sense of resignation, but also with an undeniable humanity. However, thus far their efforts have fallen short of the best of either of their predecessors' peaks, uncertain whether to go all-out for gallows laughs, being tied down by their wish to be seriously political at the same time.
Mammuth promises to go one better, with Gerard Depardieu, more corpulent than ever, playing a slaughterhouse worker finding himself at a loss upon retirement, and forced by his wife to go on a road trip to retrieve vital documentation from former employers to ensure his pension. Depardieu is a predictably perfect fit for the role, filling the screen in every way, and has some marvellously irascible moments. But then the film once again goes astray as the makers try to engineer a sort of hippyish spiritual rebirth for him, which feels forced. The curmudgeon was much more fun.

5/10