Alibi.com, written, directed and starring Philippe Lacheau - Eight out of 10

Alibi.com, written, directed and starring Philippe Lacheau

Eight out of 10

Is this worse than Dolemite is My Name?

Probably, but Dolemite has been nominated for a few Golden Globes – well, at least two, for Best Motion Picture – Comedy of Musical and Best Actor in a Leading Role, Musical or Comedy - https://realini.blogspot.com/2019/10/dolomite-is-my-name-written-by-scott.html

The idea is interesting and it could have interested the president of the United States, moron and philanderer that he is, given that Alibi.com is the site where people phone in to get out of embarrassing situations – such as those admitted to by the fool placed on top of the free world, the one who ‘grabbed women by the pussy’, paid hush money to a porn star to stay quiet during the presidential campaign about the (paid for) affair they had had, just after his wife (another helpless case) had given birth to their baby among other calamitous acts and statements.

Gregory Van Huffel aka the writer-director –lead star, Philippe Lacheau, is the mastermind of the site, the one who covers for infidelity mostly, offering alibies to cheating husbands and making a profit in the process of providing sometimes a double that looks like the injurious party, an alternative credit card to make the expenses incurred with the mistress in say Cannes appear on other documents and not the official statement that the spouse could see and understand that while the husband has been allegedly in Brussels, the card was used on the Cote d’Azur.

However, as it so often happens in movies, especially in comedies, the hero or antihero falls in love with Flo Martin and one of his clients is Gerard aka Jean-Claude, the man who comes for his ‘friend’ – just as they do when they report to the psychiatrist a problem that ‘someone they know is experiencing – and wants a cover story and the cover of Alibi.com for the trip that he would take with a much younger woman to the Cote d’Azur, meanwhile pretending to the wife that he is on business in Belgium.

Gerard proves to be Jean-Claude and the father of the woman that Gregory loves and they both have a shock when they meet, just as the young man is invited to meet the parents and from here we have many situations in which both men have to pretend, play a different part – so far, Greg had not told Flo about his real occupation, given the stigma and pestilential smell associated with making men get away with lying to and deceiving their partners – and ultimately get into a series of troubles.

As Gerard is vacationing with an aspiring singer on the coast, his wife and daughter arrive at the same hotel – we can agree this is a cliché and a déjà vu that we are so accustomed with – and the cheating man may think of the

Obfuscated as he is by the multiple, exorbitant demands of the mistress who keeps asking for caviar and outrageously expensive champagne, at about 1,000 euros a bottle.

Alibi.com intervenes and the actor who heads it plays the role of a very influential music manager and scout, to keep the mistress distracted while the philanderer spends time with the family that has just found him there, with the explanation that he had wanted to surprise them and this is why he is in a totally different place than he had advertised.

Gregory is amusing as he pretends he know everyone, including a celebrity that happens to be behind him and thus the aspiring singer asks about the connection that he know has to prove, by going to the unknown star, talking to him at a distance from the mistress that allows him some privacy, in the sense that she is unable to hear anything, but the performer does not know what this stranger wants and it could all have gone down badly, unless the Trump- like liar would not have agreed to pay a potentially massive bar bill.

As it happens, the Alibi Man has to do some covering for his own shenanigans, since he has pretended to his lover that he is a flight attendant and when he is at the hotel where he works for her father, he is alleged to be in Tanzania and when called, he claims he is with zebras and thus he is forced to try and steal one from a travelling circus belonging to some ferocious clowns and colossal men who would make every effort to repay him for losing their animal and creating havoc there.

An earthquake takes place in Tanzania, while the antihero – let us just place him in the evil category for now, while he is deceiving on all fronts – is supposed to be there and the desperate partner tries to contact him, they talk on facetime or Skype, while he has engaged the services of a French African – if that is the politically correct form – who had been selling photos and souvenirs from the Southern France and has to claim now, on the phone, that he is the tour guide hired in Dar es Salaam, but this deception might not work, especially since no hotel has the name, when Flo tries to contact him.

Nevertheless, it will not all end in tragedy, separations and divorce, for this is just a light comedy, enjoyable to some extent