Striking The Palace

An HBO special edited from three performances from Chris Rock's 2008 comedy tour: London (dark suit, dark shirt), Johannesburg (black suit, white shirt) and New York (shiny jacket). Topics include the ongoing presidential campaign, the possibility of a black president, George W. Bush, gas prices, low-paid jobs, ringtones and bottled water, sex, relationships and the correct use of the n-word

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

The whole intrigue is centered around carte-blanche documents kept in a vault. Whoever fills in the blank becomes the owner of a revue. Big money is involved. The nephew of the owner of the vault is trying to cheat his uncle and have his name in the documents. Everything is even more complicated because the manager of the bank has a finger in the pie, too. Who but a humble bank-teller (Pierre Richard) will ruin the scheme?

Adrien, 40 years old and totally immature, is dumped by Maude, 35 years old, eager to finally found a family. In an attempt to regain the love of his life, Adrien decides to move into the future ex-married apartment: a nursery home - The beginning, an improbable educational experience.

Alex, a quiet forty-something, leads an ordinary life until new neighbours move in. The husband is Alex’s perfect lookalike… except for one thing: he has hair. Alex sinks into a growing paranoia as he becomes preoccupied with this more charismatic, brilliant and accomplished mysterious double.

Babou seems to be able to shrug off anything. Real jobs, husbands, responsibilities, who needs them? But when she finds out that her own daughter is too ashamed of her to invite her to her wedding, she decides to make some changes.

A mild-mannered banker is forced to masquerade as a notorious gangster and pimp.

Three manic idiots—a lawyer, a cab driver and a handyman—team up to run a ballet company to fulfil the will of a millionaire. Stooge-like antics result as the trio try to outwit the rich widow and her scheming big-shot lawyer, who also wants to run the ballet.

Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.

Meet Adrien! He's 35. He's stuck in a mid-life crisis. He's neurotic and hypochondriac. Tonight he's stuck in an endless family dinner and his girlfriend is not answering his texts. On top of that, his dumb brother-in-law asks him to prepare a speech for his wedding. Could it get even worse?

A detective, fresh out of the academy (lowest mark in class), gets the assignment to bodyguard a spoiled rich girl reporter. She's been interviewed on TV and has questioned the virility of a mobster who kidnaps her later.

Down-on-his-luck, unemployed Alexandre has two months to prove to his wife he can take care of his two young kids and be financially independent. Now, the thing is, although The Box, a user-friendly startup, wants to hire him on pro- bation, the company’s slogan is “No kids!” and Séverine, his future boss, is a short-tempered “killer”. So if Alexandre wants to land the job, he’s bound to lie... Will his meeting with Arcimboldo, an “entrepreneur of himself” and the king of online odd jobs, help the brave, disoriented Alexandre overcome all those challenges?