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THE TOY - REVIEW

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Shortly before Gene Wilder turned a French film into The Woman In Red , we got The Toy , a remake of Francis Veber's Le Jouet starring Richard Pryor in the role originally played by Pierre Richard. It did well at the box-office despite critics not exactly praising it. One of the many Francis Veber comedies to be adapted into Hollywood films, The Toy should have been a breeze with its simple concept leaving little room for messing up and the reliable Pryor doing his thing. For the most part, this remake is pretty faithful to the original film as a rich, spoiled kid (played by Scott Schwartz) basically buys a grown man as a toy just to annoy his distant father only to find that a friendship develops between he and his purchase. The key scenes from the French film are recreated here from Pierre Richard's slapstick shenanigans to the kid's creation of a newspaper exposing his father's cold approach to everyone. As hard as he tries to make the film fun, Richard Pryor f