Frédéric Dard succeeded in forbidding the adaptation of San Antonio for 20 years. It's a shame that someone (Laurent Touil-Tartour) made him change his mind just before his death. Frédéric Dard was right : San Antonio is a jewel to read, not to watch. The scenarist tried to overcome this by melting nearly all the characters of the series and all the usual plots of San-A adventures into a single story. The result is a real mess, and the huge budget pushed it to the bottom of the abyss. LTT put high tempo where savoring was needed, he wrote standard dialogs where it should have been brilliant, he left inconsistent details where perfection was a must. 2 huge errors show how the job was not done seriously : Béru has no consequences of a bullet received at the beginning (a post-filming added dialogs tried to cancel it !), the story ends in the carnival of Rio as it was summer in Paris (the carnival takes place in February...). The casting is not so bad, but what a frustration to see very good actors prisoners of inappropriate writing. Only one reason to thank LTT : as he bought the rights on San-A adaptation, he did it before Bernard Tapie did !
Review of San Antonio
