The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

 

Well what do you know? Yet another one in the series about the world's most bumbling detective. Well, to be fair: Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers were still firing on all cylinders, but you can tell that there were to be some cracks in the formula along the way.

This one is a bit uneven, is what I'm saying. On the one hand, there's absolutely side-splitting slapstick that will have you not only in stitches but tears of laughter as well, but also quite a lot of dead moments where it feels as though the film stopped being enjoyable. 

Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Lom) is nearing the end of his tenure at a mental hospital where he was committed because he had this absurd fascination with wanting to kill Inspector Clouseau. Meanwhile, Clouseau is now the new Chief Inspector, but things seem to be on the upside for Dreyfus. 

Until Clouseau comes to visit him and Dreyfus once again completely loses it. 

Then the plot becomes extremely silly, with Dreyfus escaping, kidnapping a world famous scientist and hatching a plot to either destroy the world or deal with Clouseau once and for all.

Yes, it is quite convoluted at times, but that is probably not why you would want to watch this one. 

No question: once again Peter Sellers is the absolute focal point as he not only made Clouseau a household name, but extremely iconic at the same time. He slowly becomes more and more - well - silly and he even manages to be pretty much unkillable, because for some reason, everything always goes wrong for everyone around him and he usually escapes with only some minor bruises if any at all. This leads to a pretty funny part where international assassins are all trying to kill Clouseau and all failing for the most absurd reasons. 

Herbert Lom is now playing Dreyfus as a complete coocoo, but this feels a bit out of character. It was more fun when you could tell he was about to crack, but they never drove it as far as here. His plan to take out Clouseau is completely on par with that of the most far fetched Bond-villains (which might have served as inspiration here).

But as I said, there are several scenes where the comedy comes fast and hard and you hardly have time to catch a breath, but then there are also quite a lot of times when nothing of note happens and the film just plods along. It is very uneven and a good guess this arises because of the plot which makes little to no sense. 

Nevertheless, if you can't get enough of Inspector Clouseau, this is once again one to watch. If this all gets on your nerves, then I'd advise you to stay away as far as you possibly can.