The Chateau Movie Review:


Two American brothers with opposite personalities go to France to claim their inheritance in the comedy The Chateau. Graham (Paul Rudd) is the slacker white brother who is a free spirit and his adopted black brother Allen (Romany Malco) is the business savvy ladies man.

Both of them don’t speak French. Until recently they didn’t even know they had a great uncle by the name of Count Jacques Granville and now they have to deal with the fact that he left them a big countryside chateau.

Upon arriving in France, they head right away to the chateau. There they find that their uncle’s staff of long-time servants still live there and are not very friendly. They include butler Jean (Didier Flamand), young maid Isabelle (Sylvie Testud), older maid Sabine (Maria Verdi), and groundskeeper Pierre (Phillipe Nahon).

Graham and Allen discover that the chateau is in debt and it would be impossible for them financially to keep it so they decide to sell the place. When the staff finds out, they resort to silly but extreme measures to try and scare away all potential buyers.

To appease the servants, the brothers agree to only sell the chateau to a buyer that will also keep on the staff. Unbeknownst to Graham and Allen is that the servants led by Jean have a scam going to collect some insurance money and can’t afford to let the brothers spoil it for them.

Graham and Allen don’t get along most of the time and it doesn’t help that they both want to sleep with Isabelle.

Between the brothers trying to sell the place and the staff trying to get rid of them, this film mixes in a lot of improvisation to get some laughs.

From Americans with bad French accents to French people with arrogant attitudes, The Chateau plays up the most common stereotypes for comic relief with jagged results.

You may giggle a bit here and there as the brothers try to communicate with the servants but soon it becomes redundant and tiring.

Director Jesse Peretz gets out of the gate jumping but can’t sustain the humor or build up to a hilarious ending.

Watching the film is also difficult due to its very grainy look especially in the night scenes where you can hardly see anything that’s going on. In fact, it seems like there is more grain in this film then in the Midwest.

The Chateau may tickle you periodically but most of you will probably lose interest long before the end credits.

Gil Benzeevi

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of The Chateau and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.