Tais-toi !

Tais toi ! (French pronunciation: [tɛ twa], Shut up!) is a 2003 French comedy-crime caper film, directed by Francis Veber.

Cast

• Gérard Depardieu as Quentin
• Jean Reno as Ruby
• Richard Berry as Vernet
• André Dussollier as Le Psychiatre prison
• Jean-Pierre Malo as Vogel
• Jean-Michel Noirey as Lambert
• Laurent Gamelon as Mauricet
• Aurélien Recoing as Rocco
• Vincent Moscato as Raffi
• Ticky Holgado as Martineau
• Michel Aumont as Nosberg
• Léonor Varela as Katia / Sandra
• Loïc Brabant as Jambier
• Arnaud Cassand as Bourgoin
• Edgar Givry as Vavinet
• Adrien Saint-Joré as Adolescent 1
• Johan Libéreau as Adolescent 2
• Guy Delamarch as Lefevre
• Rebecca Potok as Mme Lefevre

• Stéphane Boucher as Le gardien chef
• Ludovic Berthillot as Le gros Taulard
• Thierry Ashanti as Le Taulard noir

Plot summary

Quentin, a dim-witted small-time thief, holds up a foreign exchange booth. Unable to get the money he wants, he asks for directions to the nearest bank. When the police are given this tip-off, Quentin runs into a cinema where Ice Age is showing. He is caught when instead of continuing to run, he sits down and enjoys the film.

Ruby, a henchman of the crime lord Vogel, who has been having an affair with his boss' wife, is thrown into a jail after getting caught hiding the loot that he stole from his boss in revenge for the death of his lover. In jail Ruby refuses to eat or speak, which concerns the jail's psychiatrist but fails to impress the detective in charge of the investigation, who sees through Ruby's ruse.

At the suggestion of the detective, the two criminals meet after Quentin, an intolerable extrovert who has driven mad two other inmates, is put in with him. Quentin thinks that he has struck up a one-sided friendship with Ruby after conducting an uninteresting monologue, however they are parted again after Ruby fakes suicide to get out. Quentin does the same and ends up in the bed next to Ruby in the infirmary.

Ruby manages to bribe the psychiatrist (who also works for Vogel) into helping him escape the prison. Quentin, however, thwarts the escape and makes his own botched attempt at escape with help from a drunken long-time friend driving a crane. Once outside Ruby is unable to get rid of Quentin, and they both go through many adventures, including robbing a diminutive horse trainer's house, dressing up in Chanel, exchanging clothing with two impertinent youths, stealing a series of police cars and fixing Ruby's shoulder with a breaking chair, in pursuit of his former partners in crime.

Sheltering in an abandoned shop, where Quentin plans to make a café business, they meet another homeless woman, who looks like Vogel's former wife. Ruby gives her some money and drops her off at a hotel to stay.

After an exciting car chase where the antagonists are trapped in a car jam, they enter the estate of Vogel and in a shoot-out results in an incapacitated Vogel, and Quentin supposedly mortally wounded. Ruby, much to his own surprise as anyone else's, expresses his grief for Quentin, who tricks him into actually opening a café after he recovers.

External links

• Tais-toi! at the Internet Movie Database