Film Review: Taxi 2 (2000)

9 months ago

(source: tmdb.org)

It is rare to find sequel better than the original film, but such achievement doesn’t seem that difficult if the original film wasn’t something to write home about. Taxi, 1998 French action comedy, provided one such example with 2000 sequel Taxi 2, directed by Gerard Krawczyk. Samy Naceri repeats the role of the protagonist, young risk-loving Marseilles taxi driver Daniel Morales who helps his friend, police detective Emilien Coutant-Kerbalec (played by Frederic Diefenthal). Plot deals with the visit of Japanese defence minister who ran afoul of yakuza who have him kidnapped. While doing so, they also abducted Petra (played by Emma Sjöberg), German policewoman who is Emilien’s love interest. Emilien and Daniel join forces to rescue minister and Petra, following the trail that leads to Paris.

Taxi 2 is better from Taxi for few simple reasons. The most obvious is choice of much more experienced director Gerard Krawczyk. Another reason is that the first film had already bothered with origin story and had major characters already defined, thus allowing Besson and Krawczyk to concentrate solely on the plot. Film features what is supposed to have – breath-taking action (including the scene which claimed the life of cameraman Alain Dutatre during the production) and shallow but mostly effective gags. The cast is solid, with Jean-Christophe Bouvet standing out in the comical role of cartoonish Daniel’s future father-in-law. For Krawczyk the most important thing was to maintain extremely quick tempo, thus denying audience opportunity to start asking some questions and notice some glaring holes in the plot. And when the action stops at the end, he doesn’t bother the audience with some sort of epilogue. The result is quick, easily digestible action comedy that would mostly please fans of the genre. Like the previous film, Taxi 2 was major success at the box office and this led to four more sequels.

RATING: 5/10 (++)