Review by Marty Mapes

Tony is a proud urban artist in a Paris suburb. He paints graffiti. He has a sidekick, Jockey, a twelve-year-old kid who has never left the city. Jockey's dad has a heart attack one night, and a nurse comes to attend. Her name is Gloria. Tony and Jockey steal a car only to find that there's an old man in the back seat who had been asleep.

Leon (Yves Montand) rounds out the trio of mismatched buddies as they set off in search of their own personal blisses. Tony wants to find his nurse. Jockey wants to see real snow on a mountain. And Leon wants to find that place called Island of the Pachyderms where he fell in love with that girl all those years ago.

Island of the Pachyderms doesn't play like a very deep movie. It's a sentimental buddy picture, and not enough more. The "road trip" format is a structure that allows lots of time for dialogue. The characters are always moving, searching, meeting tangential characters, and talking. Beineix often puts them in the great outdoors, walking through forests, making their way across a wide screen of hay bales, or looking out into the water. Leon says that nobody shouts anymore, meaning we're too urban, we never test our voices against the entire world, only against the human world.

By the end, the characters have achieved their individual goals, but they haven't really grown. The film proves to be a melody and not a chord; it has a strong arc but weak depth.

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