L'école des resquilleurs: A charmingly messy relic

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for French cinema from the thirties and enjoy watching characters who are perpetually one bad decision away from a slapstick disaster, you might actually dig this. It’s short, punchy, and doesn't waste time on anything heavy. If you demand perfect continuity or high-stakes drama, you’ll probably hate it. It’s basically a collection of sketches held together by thin string and a lot of shouting.

Watching L'école des resquilleurs feels like stumbling onto a street performance that has absolutely no intention of finishing on time. There’s a specific energy to the way Sinoël carries himself that I couldn't stop watching. It’s not a polished performance, but it’s very human. He looks like he’s constantly worried that the cops are about to show up, even when he’s just standing there.

The pacing is all over the place. One minute you’re in a crowded lobby, and the next, the movie has essentially forgotten where it put the main character. It reminded me a bit of the frantic, low-stakes energy in A Rough Party. Both movies seem to think that if you move the camera fast enough, nobody will notice the plot holes.

Odd little details

• The background extras in the train station scene look like they’re having a much more interesting conversation than the leads.
• There’s a hat that keeps moving from one side of a character's head to the other in consecutive shots. It’s hilarious.
• The dialogue is so fast it sounds like they were all paid by the word and trying to beat a deadline.

I caught myself laughing at moments that definitely weren't supposed to be funny. Like when someone trips over a curb and the whole scene just keeps rolling like nothing happened. It’s a movie that doesn't care if you notice the seams. It just wants you to keep moving along with it. It’s got that same unapologetic looseness you find in Barnum Junior, where the chaos is the whole point.

I suppose you could write an essay about the social commentary regarding class and the desire to circumvent authority. But why bother? It’s much more fun to just watch these people make a mess of their afternoon. It’s not high art. It’s just a movie that exists for the sake of being a bit of a nuisance. 🤷‍♂️

It’s weirdly refreshing to see a film that doesn't try to explain its own existence. It just shows up, causes a bit of a scene, and then the credits roll before you can really get annoyed at it. I’ll take that over a bloated prestige drama any day.