The Mozart of Pickpockets (2006)

Though he hasn’t a line in the whole thing, Matteo Razzouki-Safardi steals this engaging Dickensian style Parisian short drama. It all starts with “Philippe” (auteur Philippe Pollet-Villard) and his pal “Richard” (Richard Morgiève) who make a living pretending to be cops apprehending a gang of pickpockets. Whilst they do all the “you’re nicked” stuff, the others in their gang go through the bags and pockets of the unsuspecting bystanders and later they divide the loot. One such sting goes a bit wonky, though, and before the lads have any chance to intervene the real gendarmes have apprehended their conspirators and left them standing innocently by. Except, somewhere in the mêlée, “Richard” has a acquired a new friend. They head back to their hotel, but this young lad follows like a lost kitten despite their best efforts to scare him off. Next day, they think he could end up being quite useful helping them mug some hapless tourists, but that goes quite spectacularly wrong. When “Richard” takes the boy to the cinema - well it’s like having their very own sticky-fingered mole. Time for champagne and some ten pin bowling. “Philippe” can’t keep his ball out of the trench. He gets frustrated with a group of noisy men in the adjacent lane and… I was actually expecting something a little different at the end, but what we get is quite fitting and along the way this is really quite an entertaining comedy that makes you want to root for the robbers.