How do you remake a classic like "The Pink Panther"? How, as an actor, can you make people forget a role that has for upwards of 40 years, been defined by the mangled verbiage and pratfalls of the late Peter Sellers? For Steve Martin, the answer is simple: you reinvent the character and bring new things to the role.
This is the biggest surprise of the new version of "The Pink Panther": instead of just imitating Sellers, Martin totally put his own spin on the role. He's like a stage actor putting out his own interpretation of "Macbeth." The only thing that remains the same is the little moustache.
Sellers' Clouseau was defiantly incompetent and completely unapologetic. In his mind, all of his mistakes were part of some great scheme to unmask evildoers. He always had an explanation for why things went wrong.
Martin plays the inspector as much more childlike and naíve. His missteps become all the more poignant because he seems to realize he has made an error. Watching the original movies, one gets the sense that Sellers and director Blake Edwards had a certain disdain for their Inspector. To them, he was the putz, the fool, the idiot. In the later movies, you can almost see their feelings manifested on screen by the increased role of the Clouseau-hating Inspector Dreyfus (the inimitable Herbert Lom). In Martin's hands, he's almost something of a tragic hero.
The plot: the soccer coach for the French national soccer team is murdered and the Pink Panther Diamond is stolen off his finger, all in front of 100,000 soccer fans. Clouseau is brought in to Paris by Inspector Dreyfus (played in this version by Kevin Kline, who dials down Lom's fidgety madness) to be an incompetent front man for the investigation, while Dreyfus conducts his own search for the killer behind the scenes. Not surprisingly, Clouseau begins to make progress, with some serious assistance from office worker Nicole (the lovely Emily Mortimer) and his faithful gendarme, Ponton (Jean Reno, good as always). The prime suspect is Xania (Beyonce Knowles) the coach's pop star girlfriend, although Clouseau suspects otherwise, no doubt because he realizes that it is logistically impossible for Beyonce to ever play a villain.
Martin has reinvented himself lately as the star of family-friendly comedies (the "Cheaper by the Dozen" franchise) and the author of intelligent novellas ("Shopgirl" and the absolutely sublime "The Pleasure of My Company"). For some reason, he's never really gotten enough credit as an actor because, back in the day, everybody viewed him as that Wild and Crazy Guy and didn't take him seriously. Now, they view him as the modern-day Fred MacMurray. Even though he has turned in nuanced dramatic performances in recent years, critics have been unwilling to give him the praise usually heaped on other comedic actors who turn serious (see "Murray, Bill").
"The Pink Panther" probably is not going to get Martin that recognition, even though this may be one of his finest accomplishments, in terms of pure comic inspiration. Consider the scene where Clouseau tries to parallel park his Smartcar into a parking space that could house a German U-Boat. On a surface level, the joke is funny because watching people park is funny, and watching people park small cars is even funnier. The genius lies in the look of determination on Martin's face, like somehow maneuvering this small car into this huge face is a Herculean effort. As the car keeps banging back and forth between the bumpers of the larger cars, he becomes all the more focused on his goal. It's an anarchic set piece, made all the more brilliant by Martin's steadfast earnestness.
Throughout his career, both as an actor, comedian and essayist, Martin's greatest skill has been his command of language, which he employs beautifully here. He gives the Inspector a unique cadence that is totally different from Sellers broad French accent. His crowning achievement comes when he meets with a dialect coach to try and master an American accent by practicing the phrase "I would like to buy a hamburger". This scene, which becomes an escalating battle of wits between a panicky Clouseau and his increasingly harried instructor, is as funny as anything in the Sellers movies. The joy of this sequence is watching Martin, who has always been fond of saying the key to comedy is "chaos in the midst of order", bump up against an invisible wall and respond by losing his calm exterior and having a complete and utter breakdown. He's done this before in some of the signature moments of his career, especially the "Those aren't pillows!" sequence from "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and the sniper attack in "The Jerk" ("Somebody hates these cans!").
The tech credits are all excellent across the board and director Shawn Levy makes excellent use of his European locations, including Paris and Prague, both of which look gorgeous.
The big question though is whether or not the movie is funny. For me, the answer is yes: I responded to the goofy, absurdist spirit and responded to Martin's take on Clouseau. Is he better than Sellers? I don't think it's fair to compare them since they play the role so differently. Martin's performance is like hearing a new artist cover an old song, and then remembering why you loved it in the first place.
4 out of 5
