Charles Dreyfus encounters Jacques Gambrelli, who reminds him painfully of Inspector Clouseau, the man who drove him insane. With good reason: Gambrelli is Clouseau's son.
Eighth entry in the Pink Panther. It is nearly 30 years since Inspector Jacques Clouseau managed to get Maria Gambrelli off from a murder charge (events of "A Shot In The Dark".) Maria has gone on and have moved to a seaside town. Also Princess Yasmin of Lugash has come to the town for a holiday with her father. She is kidnapped and because of the strong ties between France and Lugash, Chief Inspector Dreyfus is called in to find her. He is hampered by the local police officer Jacques and is amazed when he finds that Jacques is Maria's son. He is terrified even though he and Maria are falling in love that Jacques is Clouseau's son and Jacques is showing Clouseau-ish behaviour. Both Jacques and Dreyfus set out to find the missing Princess...—Lee Horton <[email protected]>
A princess who is in France to accompany her father on a diplomatic mission. She is kidnapped by people who wants her father to abdicate, which he will not do even for her. And since her country has such close ties to France the president instructs police commissioner Dreyfuss to go where the princess was kidnapped and oversee the investigation. On the way he runs into the kidnappers and were to be shot when a patrolman stumbles into them and saves Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss thinks that there is something familiar about this policeman. When he goes to the local police chief and tells him that he will be handling the investigation and asks for his best man, he gives him Gambrelli, who just happens to be the policeman he met earlier as a means of retaliation. And having another encounter with Gambrelli, he goes to his home to meet his mother, and is shocked to discover that his father's Clouseau, which is whom Gambrelli reminds Dreyfuss of. After Dreyfuss is injured, he gives the task of finding the princess to Gambrelli, cause he is the only one who knows who the kidnappers are. And just like his father, he bumbles through it.—[email protected]
Princess Yasmin of Lugash (Debrah Farentino) is abducted in French territorial waters off the coast of Nice by terrorists led by a mercenary named Hans (Robert Davi) in order to force her father to abdicate and allow her disgraced stepmother's lover, a military general with terrorist ties to an unfriendly neighboring kingdom, to claim the throne. Police Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is tasked with solving the case of the kidnapped princess. While investigating her disappearance in the South of France, he has a run-in with the kidnappers, and a local gendarme, named Jacques Gambrelli (Roberto Benigni). Gambrelli opens the trunk of the kidnapper's van and unknowingly spies the Princess who he believes is the driver's sister en route to the hospital.
Hans becomes aware that Gambrelli witnessed the Princess in the back of his van and sends his henchmen to kill Gambrelli as a routine precaution. Dreyfus follows Gambrelli to the hospital where he observes the bumbling Gambrelli's antics with stumbling around as well as getting his bicycle stuck in a wet cement sidewalk outside the hospital. When Hans's henchmen arrive and chase after Gambrelli on his bicycle, Dreyfus intervenes and saves the klutzy policeman. He then takes Gambrelli to his home where he lives with his mother Maria (Claudia Cardinale) whom Dreyfus recognizes as a suspect in a murder case 30 years ago. During the casual encounter with Maria, Dreyfus learns from her Gambrelli is in fact the illegitimate son of the late Inspector Jacques Clouseau. When Hans's men attempt to plant a bomb under the Gambrelli house, it leads to Dreyfus becoming injured instead and sent to the hospital.
While Maria decides to stay beside the injured Dreyfus at the hospital to see him recover, they both reveal Gambrelli's origins to him as the only known offspring of the late Inspector Clouseau. Gambrelli finally decides to set off to rescue Princess Yasmin and prove himself his father's true heir and legacy. Gambrelli recognizes one of Hans's henchmen at the hospital who is inquiring about a doctor for Hans who is injured after Yasmin had attempted to escape. Impersonating a doctor, Gambrelli gains access to Hans hideout and clumsy attempts to treat the injured Hans, who soon sees through Gambrelli's charade and has him locked up with the princess.
Hans decides to move his safe house out of France and to Lugash, and sends his men to kill Gambrelli by placing him in a van and rolling it down a steep road off a cliff, but Gambrelli manages to escape. Seeking help, Gambrelli travels to Paris to look up Clouseau's old friends and soon meets his late father's former manservent Cato Fong (Burt Kwouk) who directs him to Inspector Clouseau's former costumer Professor Auguste Balls (Graham Stark) to assist them with making new disguises for themselves to travel to Lugash to rescue Princess Yasmin. Gambrelli and Cato fly to Lugash where they meet a government agent at a local restaurant to point them the location of Hans' new hideout.
While being followed by the Lugash Army, as well as Cato, Gambrelli ventures to a castle located outside the Lugash capital city where in a climatic gun battle, Gambrelli gains access to the castle with the assistance of the army and after confronting Hans and his henchmen, defeats them, with a little of Cato's help and rescues Princess Yasmin.
After returning to France, Gambrelli is promoted to detective and transfers to Paris's metro police force as a full Police Inspector. He attends the wedding of Maria and Dreyfus whom have gotten engaged during their time together while Dreyfus recuperated at the hospital. During the reception, Dreyfus is uncomfortably shocked when Gambrelli's twin sister Jacqueline Gambrelli (Nicoletta Braschi) appears and who turns out to be just a clumsy and dim-witted as her brother, as Maria tells Dreyfus that she in fact had twins from her one-time tryst with Inspector Clouseau.
The final scene has Inspector Gambrelli attending a ceremony in Lugash attended by King Haroak and Princess Yasmin who award him with a special medal for his rescue of Yasmin which is attended by Maria, Dreyfus, Cato, Prof. Balls and Jacqueline Gambrelli where his clumsy antics disrupt the proceedings just like his father's Inspector Clouseau's antics used to do in previous Pink Panther films. Gambrelli closes the film with the line: "Now, that felt good!" following by the image of Gambrelli freezing as the animated Pink Panther walks across the still of Jacques, until an animated Gambrelli suddenly cuts away the head of live-action Gambrelli and pops out of the hole, dropping the head on the Panther's foot; the enraged Panther chases him into fading blackness.
