Genre:
Comedy
Theatrical Release: 02/10/2006(USA)
Release Date: 01/01/2001
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time:
Flags: Adult Language, Adult Humor, Scatological Humor
Distributor/Studio: Sony Pictures
The world's most inept detective returns to the screen in this modern
slapstick comedy. France's come-from-behind victory in the World Cup soccer championships turns tragic when the team's coach,
Yves Gulant (
Jason Statham), is murdered during a post-game celebration.
Gulant's girlfriend,
pop star
Xania (
Beyoncé Knowles), was standing by his side as he was felled by a poisoned dart, and in the chaos that followed a diamond ring he gave her was stolen, which held one of the world's largest and most valuable jewels, known as "the Pink Panther." The media and the public demand that the killer be found out and brought to justice, and
Chief Inspector Dreyfus (
Kevin Kline) of the Paris Police pledges to put his best man on the case. However, somehow the astoundingly clumsy but consistently lucky
Inspector Jacques Clouseau (
Steve Martin) gets the assignment instead, and with his assistant,
Gendarme Gilbert Ponton (
Jean Reno), in tow,
Clouseau follows a dizzying trail of clues from Paris to New York City as he attempts to recover the rare diamond and find the villains who killed
Gulant. An updated variant on the
Inspector Clouseau comedies that helped make
Peter Sellers a major star in the United States,
The Pink Panther also stars
Emily Mortimer,
Kristin Chenoweth,
Roger Rees, and
William Abadie; leading man
Steve Martin also wrote the film's screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide