Nicotine! Benzene! Ammonia! Methanol! Mercury! I give you the alternate universe equivalents of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Captain America. Welcome to the mediocre frivolity of Smoking Causes Coughing, a weak comedy interrupted by horror – or vice versa.
Get a load of the superhero jumpsuits. The “Tobacco Force” all wander around in blue vinyl with color coordinated outer underwear (“so we can check!”). It’s straight out of something Japan would have distributed in the 1980s to show how out-of-touch they were when it came to superheroics. We happen upon our heroes battling a “diabolical giant turtle” (as described by Wikipedia). How do these guys fight a man in (quite obviously) a giant rubber turtle suit? Why, they surround it and blast it with poisons (presumably cigarette-related poisons) until it explodes. And when it explodes, we get a taste of the film’s purpose when a bucket of turtle blood not only escapes the immediate battle arena, but manages to drench some random on-lookers hundreds of feet from the scene.
The Tobacco Force is not actually an advocate of tobacco usage, as explained by force leader Benzene (Gilles Lellouche). Their use of the superpoisons found in cigarettes is suppose to -ironically- highlight the dangers of smoking. And just as heroes are mismatched with message, Smoking Causes Coughing is mismatched with content. The heroes “battling” the giant turtle is pretty much the last “heroics” one will see in the film. For the heroes quickly retreat to a campsite bunker and tell horror stories until the film ends. I’m not kidding. This is exactly the plot of the story.
Oh, I’ve forgotten Chief Didier, the puppet rat head of Tobacco Force. Hmmm, how shall I describe? Imagine a human-size rat … except it doesn’t look like a rat; it looks more like the muppet Rizzo, only bigger and uglier. And it constantly drools green slime, which saturates the rat’s human
clothing. Oh, it gets better. The rat is a womanizer whom the female members of Tobacco Force have fallen for. I cannot deny there are legitimately comical parts of this film.
The problem here is Smoking Causes Coughing quickly goes anywhere except the direction it was headed. The gang has downtime in the bunker while their robot commits suicide and they end up sharing long horror non-sequiturs. Then the barracuda being roasted on the bunker burner tells a long horror non-sequitur. There is only 77 minutes of film in this thing and at least 30 minutes of it is spent relaying events that have nothing to do with the plot. So stop me if you think this film didn’t lose its way. The whole thing plays like a poor man’s Kentucky Fried Movie.
This is one of those films I cannot believe got financing because it is so bizarre, disjointed, and pointless all at the same time. Maybe the procedure for getting your film made is different in France. As I said, it is not without jocularity, but the humor is so off-the-wall and interlaced with gruesome horror that the whole thing seems cringe-worthy. I have no doubt Smoking Causes Coughing will have fans among those with, perhaps, a very odd sense of humor. For me, I might have gotten behind a tale of Tobacco Force by itself, but that plotline was quickly abandoned because, I’m guessing, writer/director Quentin Dupieux prefers horror even when he’s making a comedy.
Five heroes with a call to oppose
Use poison to combat their foes
Not very charming?
If you find that alarming
You should check out their battle-issue clothes
Not Rated, 77 Minutes
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Writer: Quentin Dupieux
Genre: Brie – that’s a soft French cheese, right?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Weary film festival patrons looking for something without substance
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who enjoy proper stories
