Au bonheur of Ogres (or as you prefer The Scapegoat) is a film based on a famous French novel, of the same name, written in 1985 by Daniel Pennac and directed by Nicolas Bary. A nice comedy for the whole family, but also focuses on some important dramatic points. This tells the story of a totally dysfunctional family, but focused on one of its members, the older brother Benjamin Malaussène.

Malaussène is a very peculiar guy. He has a very peculiar personality, he is funny, distracted and clumsy by nature. He is charged with taking care of his family, as the mother is absent and always appears at home to "dump" the various children of many boyfriends she has during her life. Malaussène works in a big department store in Paris where he is a technical controller, but it is all a scheme, in fact it does absolutely nothing. What Malaussène actually is, is a scapegoat, taking the blame for all customer complaints. Each time there is a complaint Malaussène and the man responsible for the department make a scene where Malaussène is fired in front of the customers, making the customer feel sorry for him and draw the complaint, so the store is never impaired. A series of bombs start exploding at the warehouse and strangely explode when Malaussène is around, starting to be a certain suspicion by the police and some of his coworkers. Later discoveries turn out to be serious, since some tragic events happened in the warehouse in the past.

The film presents us with a good amount of visual effects very well executed, combined very well with the magic that the main character carries around. I must also mention the fantastic end credits, super vibrant and full of color. Its simplistic, optimistic and dreamy attitude constantly makes the audience interest, even if we known that we are not witnessing any masterpiece. Quite ambitious when it comes to direction with well implemented plans and good ideas but end up failing when it comes to the story that starts to become ridicularized when it is given more importance to the humorous tone of the story forgetting the darkest part.

The cast does a very good job, because maybe without the great dynamic between them the story probably would not have resulted as well. Raphaël Personnaz is perfect as Malaussène, his whole strange behavior, physical posture and way of being is able to convince us immediately. Berenice Bejo despite having an important role in the middle of the story turns out to be a character that is quite irrelevant, but always playing her role well. Emir Kusturica in a mysterious role manages to come out quite well but my view was poorly used, he deserved more evidence.

Despite the flaws Au Bonheur des Ogres can be a very lively and cheerful film, the kind of film that makes you leave the theater with a smile, good mood and for that alone it's worth losing a little bit of your time to see it.