While sitting in a video store late one night, while reciting the lines to the end of The Big Sleep, a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting comes whizzing by and hits the clerk square in the forehead. After his miraculous recovery, he finds himself out of a job and thrust out onto the streets of Paris, where he struggles to make it day by day. Then one day he luckily comes into the shelter of a circus-like troupe of misfits, each with a particular and peculiar talent. Inhabiting a junyard, the group makes intricate gadgets, and when the young man discovers the locations of two rival weapons manufacturers, one responsible for the bullet lodged in his brain and the other responsible for the land mine that killed his father in the western Sahara Desert, the stage is now set for revenge. Micmacs is writer/director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's attempt to recreate the massive success he scored with Amelie, and for the most part I felt he succeeded. With another cleverly directed film capturing Paris in stark colors, I appreciated the comic timing of the film which somewhat reminded me of a roadrunner cartoon. I felt the script left something to be desired and was irritated with some of the caricatures, but I caught myself laughing out loud on several occasions, and found the film to be engaging throughout and creative, something that is largely lacking in the modern cinema.
