In 2010 director Quentin Dupieux unleashed his bizarre masterpiece Rubber. It is strange and has no reason that it should work, but it does and I love it. His latest film Mandibles stars Gregoire Ludig, David Marsais, Adele Exarchopoulos, India Hair, Romeo Elvis, Coralie Russier, and Bruno Lochet. Could this be yet another bizarre piece of brilliance or will it fail to fly high enough?

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Mandibles follows simple-minded friends Jean-Gab and Manu who find a giant fly trapped in the boot of a car, they decide to train it in the hope of making a ton of cash. With a premise like this and his past films like Rubber I fully expected this to be yet another wacked out strange adventure, but was surprised that it isn’t near as bizarre as I expected.

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The film wastes no time setting this up and introducing the audience to this down on their luck duo and their new giant pet fly. What’s best about this is there is never an explanation of the fly itself and that makes it work all the better. What confused me and maybe that was the point, but the fly is actually kind of a side story to everything else. That makes it all the more weird and funny, but also a bit confusing.

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Instead this is a story about these two guys trying to find a way to make the big score and through their journey end up in varying silly but pretty average situations. Of course these moments set the tone to add more craziness to their ultimate goal to keep the training and secret of the giant fly intact and moving forward. There are a couple of memorable characters including one that had suffered a brain injury that just adds to the strangeness.

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The fly itself is awesome. Visually it looks great and the movements of it whether it be animatronic or puppet are spot on. I kept waiting for more to happen with the fly and instead it’s just like a normal addition as if it was just a dog like it was just ok. This is the kind of movie that most will no doubt avoid just due to the premise, but manages to be a strange and entertaining comedy that is just differentt enough to stand out but still offer up familiar tropes to the genre.

  

Decide for yourself and check out Mandibles available now everywhere from Magnet Releasing.