Retirement Home 2: Ehpad pity for Kev Adams (review)

Kev Adams does it again with his old French comedy curmudgeons.

In the first Retirement home, Kev Adams played Milann, an arrogant young guy, hating old people and forced to work in a nursing home as part of his Tiges. Quickly converted into a good Samaritan, he restored dignity to the residents and even imagined a culture shock by confronting his decrepit residents with turbulent orphans. A pretext to offer its vermilion card actors something to have fun with and its spectators a demo of good feelings.

When MDR2 begins we discover that the retirement home is threatened with closure. Kev, faithful to the post, decides to embed the residents in another nursing home in the south of France. There, he encounters two problems: firstly the delicate mix between his team of old hands and the new veterans (Chantal Ladesou, Jean Réno, Enrico Macias, Amanda Lear, Michel Jonasz….). Then – and above all – the confrontation with the director of a nursing home company more interested in money and profits than in the well-being of its constituents (the Orpéa scandal happened there).

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MDR 2 uses the same strings as the first. First of all, the regressive jokes: its cast destroys each other with Nerf guns and insults each other (Chantal Ladesou belches her insanities with a frankly funny soldier’s air). In this register, it is Jean Reno who benefits the most from the situation. An old curmudgeon, a mytho who rides on his own glory, he is imperial. Arrival in slow motion, memories recounted on the seafront with glazed eyes: in sub-Bruce Willis mode, he entertains. If the retirement home film is a genre that demographics promise a bright future, Kev and Claude Zidi Jr have also understood one essential thing. The old people have a decisive advantage over the young people: they no longer take themselves seriously, they have nothing to lose. And in Retirement home 2while we keep him company, the elderly take on the air of a pleasure party.

But we are at the cinema, and we need a story or a meaning. And Kev and his filmmaker once again deliver life lessons, even a moral, a bit marshmallowy. Nevertheless, MDR 2 adds two particularities to this cocktail: firstly an ending in the form of a scam at the Ocean’s eleven morning of Queen’s game which we will not reveal to leave you a complete surprise. The scam mic-mac is not very first choice, the dynamiting comes up a little short, but the whole thing energizes the final coda a little. Above all, even more than in the first, we have the impression that Kev is playing Ringmaster here. He organizes, lights the fuse, passes the dishes and if he treats himself to a few funny scenes (very good imitation of Christophe Maé), he first thinks collectively. He seems to watch his actors enjoy being delirious.

By Claude Zidi Jr. With Kev Adams, Jean Reno, Chantal Ladesou… Duration: 1h42. Released February 14, 2024