The premise of "Coupe de Ville" is hardly original - eccentric father gets his three sons, who all hate each other, to drive a car across America for him. Standard road-movie fare, then, and you know they'll all love each other before the end of the trip. Also, the characters are one dimensional (and, in the beginning, impossible to like), while the inevitable disasters that assail them are predictable and yet desperately dull and umimaginitively conceived. The continuous soundtrack sweetens thing up. And yet the film retains a certain charm. It's nicely shaped, not too pretentious, and oddly appeals in a cartoony sort of way - its almost like an adults' film made with the limited sophistication of a children's one. It may not be great film-making, but it's a lot more watchable than you might expect.
Review of Coupe de Ville
