Mammuth (2011)

63% of critics liked it
(24 reviews)
46% of users liked it
(890 ratings)

After turning 60, working-class man Serge (Grard Depardieu) decides to retire and is ready to reap his pensioners rewards. He runs into the implacable wall of bureaucracy after finding out that his former employers have neglected to declare his earnings. To receive full benefits he needs to go back… More After turning 60, working-class man Serge (Grard Depardieu) decides to retire and is ready to reap his pensioners rewards. He runs into the implacable wall of bureaucracy after finding out that his former employers have neglected to declare his earnings. To receive full benefits he needs to go back to them and gather the missing affidavits. Encouraged by his wife, our hero climbs his old 1970s Mammoth motorcycle and sets off on a trip to recover lost wages and buried memories. As he reconnects with old friends, Serge discovers that their idea of him is vastly at odds with his self-image; salvation comes to him from his young niece, who awakens the happy poet that lies dormant inside him. -- (C) Olive Films

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 32 min.
Directed By: Gustave de Kervern, Benoît Delépine
Written By: Gustave de Kervern, Benoît Delépine
Genres: Drama, Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: Sep 30, 2011 Limited
On DVD: Sep 19, 2011
Studio: Olive Films

Critic Reviews

Rachel Saltz, New York Times
"Mammuth" has the distressed, gritty look of a 1970s movie. (It was shot on Super 16 reversal film.) But it takes its cues from some of the less-appealing aspects of that era's freewheeling style, in particular a sort of curdled whimsy.
Melissa Anderson, Village Voice
Too limp and scattershot to warrant anything stronger than indifference...
Rex Roberts, Film Journal International
Cynical and sentimental by turns, Mammuth takes a ride on the wild side, but well within speed limits.
David Fear, Time Out New York
Depardieu makes the most of it. Because of him, such surreal Gallic scuzziness has rarely seemed so sweetly tender.
Bill Weber, Slant Magazine
A wan road comedy with pretensions that can be jettisoned for the inevitable John Travolta remake.
Burl Burlingame, Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Depardieu is a very shaggy beastie in this film, deliberate and bullish, blown up to prehistoric size and pretty much headed for extinction at the hands of French bureaucracy.
Graham Young, Birmingham Post
Depardieu's lugubrious features have rarely been better suited to playing a character who is such a handful that he is duty-bound to shock.
Philip French, Guardian [UK]
Intermittently very funny.
Allan Hunter, Daily Express
Retirement can be a death sentence but in the eccentric, meandering French road movie Mammuth it becomes a second chance to reconnect with life.
David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]
Gerard Depardieu embarks on a road trip through France in a comedydrama that begins well before taking an unwelcome surreal detour. A pity, because the first half hour is very, very funny.
Derek Malcolm, This is London
It is often quite offbeat, anarchic stuff about how time and age tend to betray us.
Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Enjoyably offbeat and frequently hilarious, this is an engaging road movie with a terrific central performance from Gerard Depardieu...
Trevor Johnston, Radio Times
An acquired taste.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
A funny, sad and weird road movie starring Gérard Depardieu in a pungent role.
Julian White, Little White Lies
Make a note of the names Delépine and de Kervern. That way you can avoid them in future.
Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
Depardieu ... is yet again the overmastering reason to see a film that without him would be masterless and quickly, in the mind, over.
David Jenkins, Time Out
The gauche humour of 'Mammuth' camouflages a sweet torch song to the struggles of the working class in the face of private- and public-sector indifference.
David Parkinson, Empire Magazine
A quirky road-trip movie with things to say. A return to form for Depardieu too.
Tom Dawson, Total Film
Belgian filmmakers Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern return with an often surreal road movie, which blends social commentary with deadpan humour.

Read all 19 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Panta O

Directors Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine in this movie combined intense Frenchness with a kind of English comedy-sensibility the best possible way and they got weird movie which is fummy and sad! Gérard Depardieu was a real star even in very unusual scenes which Kervern and… More
Directors Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine in this movie combined intense Frenchness with a kind of English comedy-sensibility the best possible way and they got weird movie which is fummy and sad! Gérard Depardieu was a real star even in very unusual scenes which Kervern and Delépine sometimes unexpectedly spring on the viewer, just to keep us all off balance (one of those scenes shows Depardieu engaging in the kind of activity with his cousin which is almost always reserved for teenagers in the movies)... A fat, resentful and slow-witted man called Serge, riding a motorbike "Mammuth" is uncompromisingly unsympathetic. His wife is working in a supermarket (played by Yolande Moreau) and she, too, is massively unsympathetic. And two of them in a story when Serge retires from his job in a meat-packing plant - does not promise a lot... it'll be your mistake to assume that! Serge must now tour around the country on his old motorbike, collecting the lost payslips and documents that prove his employment history and this is a chance for us to travel with him into his dodgy dark past haunted by the ghost of an old girlfriend, played by the beautiful Isabelle Adjani. Enjoy this unexpected journey in full! I really did!
Daniel P

Having two rather unsympathetic characters as your leads isn't a problem for me, especially when they are played by Gerard Depardieu and the fearless Yolande Moreau at the top of their game. What I did find troubling with Mammuth however is that it is… More
Having two rather unsympathetic characters as your leads isn't a problem for me, especially when they are played by Gerard Depardieu and the fearless Yolande Moreau at the top of their game. What I did find troubling with Mammuth however is that it is (ironically) so slight, it barely exists. The promising, pretty funny start sets up what could have been a decent, off-beat road movie, with Serge tasked to seek out his many past employers in order to get enough pay-slips or affidavits in order to draw his pension. Though this does indeed remain the 'hanger' for the film, we are mostly given over to indulging in "kooky" scenes that have absolutely no weight, little point, and quickly start to grate - such as the continual concentrations on Serge's "free-spirited" (psychotic) niece Miss Ming. Running through is a thread that remains disappointingly under-explored about Serge's past and his guilt over the death of a beautiful young woman. There are some scenes that work (a bizarre, funny sequence where Serge is re-united with his now elderly cousin and they try and wank each other off as they once did when they were kids, abandoning their attempts when cramp sets in) and others that simply do not. The final scene is disarmingly sweet and moving and ends the film on a high, and though there is good work from the leads and occasionally some interesting things to say about the human condition, too much of the short running time is annoying or forgettable and overall Mammuth disappoints.

Cast

            Gérard Depardieu as Mammuth

            Yolande Moreau as Catherine

            Isabelle Adjani as The Lost Lover

            Benoît Poelvoorde as The Competitor

            Miss Ming as Miss Ming

            Blutch as Pension Fund Employee

            Philippe Nahon as Director of the Retirement Home

            Bouli Lanners as Recruiting Agent

            Anna Mouglalis as Fake Crippled

            Albert Delpy as The Cousin

            Bruno Lochet as Restaurant Guest 1

            Rémy Roubakha as Restaurant Guest 2

            Joseph Dahan as Restaurant Guest 3

            Gustave Kervern as Delicatessen Employee

            Stéphanie Pillonca as Restaurant Waitress

            Jawad Enejjaz as Judge of Faces

            Rémy Kolpa-Kopoul as Roundabout Boss

            Sine Bundgaard as Wine Grower

            Paulo Anarkao as Big Bertha

            Céline Richeboeuf as Miss Ming's Friend

            Aurelie Brin as Miss Ming's Other Friend

            Sophie Seugé as Miss Ming's Accomplice

            Bernard Geoffrey as Slaughterhouse Director

            Dick Annegarn as Cemetery Guard

            Marie-Claude Pluviaud as Fish Shop Customer

            Catherine Hosmalin as Catherine's Friend

            Eric Monfourny as The Priest

            Noel Godin as Le Tartobole

            David Pougnaud-Barillon as Supervisor

            Serge Nuques as The Crazy Biker

            Zoé Weber as The Little Girl on the Phone

            Cédric Geoffroy as Assistant Director of Slaughterhouse

            Serge Lariviere
            
See full cast