I Watch TV: Zorro (2024) (French)

 

Zorro (2024) (The comedy French one)

It’s Los Angeles in 1821, in Spanish California. 20 years ago Zorro, the masked swordsman fought against injustice, then disappeared. His alter ego Don Diego de la Vega (Jean DuJardin) now believes in the rule of law, non-violence, etc., his signature policy being to try and get water piped into the town. Every time there is a problem his mute servant Bernado encourages him to put on his mask and solve it with the sword (or possibly whip).

Don Alejandro, his father, the mayor, dies (though he returns to haunt him, his ghost entertainingly not knowing about his dual identity for several episodes). Immediately things go wrong; Don Emmanuel demands his loans repaid, and when the city can’t afford it he seizes land to build a casino. Nakaï, an autocthon* boy attacks the guards and is arrested; Zorro has to return to put this right when Don Diego’s wife Gabrielle intervenes.

Every attempt by Don Diego to make things better goes wrong; similarly everything he does as Zorro has unintended consequences. He and Gabrielle, childless, adopt Nakaï but this exposes him to mockery from the upper class of the town. When Zorro robs the casino to return money to the people they build a useless golden statue of Zorro. Gabrielle falls in love with Zorro, eventually choosing him over Don Diego, the two openly living together in perhaps the most absurd part of the show, which swings between very funny, perplexing and biting when Don Emmanuel hires Zorro to put on performances to pay the bills.

It's a comedy, dubbed from the French. Not the Spanish, serious one I was looking for when I stumbled on this. Is it a little laboured, the jokes perhaps a bit mean? That Don Diego wants to improve things by regular, legal methods, that he wants to treat people with respect, yet they lie and cheat, the common people fools, the richer ones interested in their own affairs, that’s the joke? Well yes, yet this cuts many ways. They need Zorro, but they also need Don Diego. That the idea of a masked vigilante is ridiculous, yet in the end it inspires better. That the sergeant of the guard has been meditating on his feud with Zorro for twenty years, gets very close to unmasking him so many times.

Not by swordplay though, Zorro just wins at that, every time. That’s pretty funny, that he can defeat any force sent against him, and that doesn’t help a lot.

Watch This: Great stunts, some fun poking at the absurdities of Zorro
Don’t Watch This: You didn’t want your masked swordsman to be the butt of some mean jokes

* Don Diego has championed not calling the indigenous people “Indians” as it is inaccurate and demeaning.