"Five" is the second French film I had the pleasure of seeing this year, and once again, I was pleasantly surprised. After "An Ideal Man", I dove into the world of Igor Gotesman's comedy/thriller. The film tells the story of five childhood friends who share the dream of living under the same roof, but things go wrong. I'm going to refrain from revealing any spoilers, but I want to highlight the beautiful exploration of love and friendship, sometimes stronger than family bonds.

This is my second film with Pierre Niney, which I still find excellent. Although I found him less convincing in this role, I discovered another remarkable actor in the person of François Civil. Known by name, but new to me on the big screen, he knew how to captivate my attention. His impeccable interpretation of a funny but complex character particularly appealed to me.

The diversity of characters within the group of friends is remarkable: Pierre Niney embodies the rock on whom we can always count, François Civil brings the comic touch, Margot Bancilhon imposes her authority, Igor Gotesman takes on the role of the manager, and Idrissa Harnot subtly plays the shy guy who knows how to put himself forward at the right time. Every viewer can identify with one of these eclectic characters.

Although Pierre Niney and François Civil dominate the screen, the other cast members, like Fanny Ardant, Pascal Demolon and Hedi Bouchenafa, all add their own dose of humor to the film. "Five" offers a captivating blend of suspense and humor, with some memorable moments, especially thanks to the hilarious appearances of François Civil.

I highly recommend this film for an entertaining evening, but I advise watching it with friends rather than family, due to some scenes that could be awkward. In any case, I am delighted to have discovered this cinematic gem.

Okay what we got here is "Five", a French movie from 2016 that runs for slightly over 100 minutes and was directed by Igor Gotesman, who is also part of the writing staff and as well one of the actors in here actually playing one of the characters summarized as five in the title. Don't be tricked by the title, the film is almost entirely in French from start to finish. Most known cast member is certainly Pierre Niney and while I like him in general, I was not too fond of his performance here. I assume drama may be more his thing compared to comedy. Or it was just the plot I don't know. It is the story of five friends making a plan to live together in an apartment and what happens when the one who plays most of the rent is not ready to do so anymore because his father refuses to send him any more money. Don't get me wrong, this film is not a failure by any means, but the quantity of quality comedy is just not frequent enough for a film that makes it easily past the 1.5-hour mark. One scene I liked was the revelation how he isn't a doctor in fact. Very dark humor really. Another moment I liked, a very tiny one, was when we hear one character saying "I am not stupid" or so and we see the other's (Niney's) reaction to that sentence because honestly he was pretty stupid.And finally a third scene that follows quite afterward is when one character decides to troll his landlord by dumping a turd right in front of the man's door. Problem was the attractive daughter of the landlord passed by that thr guy has been crushing on for a while, so he has to collect the sausage quickly. Okay, that was really gross somehow, but also funny. I am usually not a fan of fecal humor, also the farting jokes on some occasions in here, but how he has to pay immediately for what he did was somewhat funny. That's basically all the positive I can say I think. Could have been more for sure. Should have been more for sure for a positive recommendation from my side. But the weak and fogettable is just way more frequent. The first half felt pretty bland and uninteresting to me. The drug business story line never made an impact unfortunately. Okay well, the double slapping wasn't too shabby. I'll give them that. And the part about obstacles in the characters' close friendship did not feel half as emotional as I wnted it to. It was really difficult to cheer for the characters. I must say with some of the stuff he did I very much disliked Niney's character and I am sure that was not intended. As for the romance parts, some of it was interesting, other stuff not so much. i already mentioned the landlord's daighter. As for positive, you can also include the hidden romance between two friends, even if you must ask why did they not tell anybody if everybody was so close with everybody. But the other two were weak. The main character's love story added virtually nothing and the guy sleeping around with everybody did not make an impact either. Actually from any perspective, not just his romantic ideals. And definitely not the explanation towards the end how unhappy he is with not being able to find the right one. Now that was a bit on the cringey side for sure. Also the somewhat happy ending like conclusion was weak too, even if it probably wasn't the weakest aspect about the movie. Overall, I am not surprised thai film did not win too many awards, seemingly zero according to imdb. It is not a good movie in my opinion and honestly, it also isn't a film that will attarct a great deal of awards recognition, not only because it is a bit of a pointless stoner comedy at times. So yeah, from me it is a thumbs-down and the good moments are far from frequent enough for me to give this one a watch. And I am writing this as somebody who really likes French films in general, but this one here was quite disappointing sadly.