Entre chiens et loups
2002 Crime Thriller
|
Credits
|
|
|
Summary
Adrien, a notorious crook, is released from jail but he has cancer and will die within
six months. He initially intends to spend what time he has left with his wife and
son, but a Rumanian named Rodman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Adrien is to
travel to Rumania with an accomplice, a suicidal young man named Werner, where they will
take part in a staged assassination attempt. Both Adrien and Werner will be shot
dead by the victim’s bodyguards, and, in reward, their families will be handsomely rewarded.
With nothing to lose, Adrien accepts the contract, but on the day of the phoney assassination
things do not go as planned…
Review
Having directed a number of hugely popular policiers in the 1980s (notably the hit
Le Grand pardon, 1982), Alexandre Arcady
returned to the genre in 2002 with this obvious imitation of the American action thriller.
Despite an interesting plot and some well-choreographed action scenes, the film is marred
by some artistic excesses (such as some laughably bad use of slow-motion effects) and
uneven pacing. There’s also more than a dollop of that trademark Arcady sentimentality,
which makes certain scenes almost unbearable to watch. The film’s biggest turn-off,
however, is the surfeit of gratuitous violence: does anyone get any pleasure from watching
the kind of sick sadistic butchery that this film seems to revel in? On a more positive
note, Richard Berry manages to bring some depth to his character and helps to make an
implausible plot just about believable. It’s a pity that his co-star, Saïd
Taghmaoui, does almost the exact opposite…
© James Travers 2005 Write a review for this film... |
|
