Le Guetteur (2012)
Directed by Michele Placido

Film Review

Le Guetteur (a.k.a. The Lookout) marks the French feature debut of Michele Placido, a well-known Italian film actor and director who found international acclaim with his stylish crime-drama Romanzo criminale (2005).  Any film that boasts the combined talents of Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Kassovitz and Olivier Gourmet, three of French cinema's most bankable stars, can hardly fail to attract our attention, and with Placido in the driving seat you'd think this would be a sure-fire hit.  Whilst the film has its moments (it starts well and ends well), overall it just doesn't make the grade, hampered as it is by a third-rate screenplay and a general lack of focus.   Instead of coming up with an original scenario, screenwriters Cédric Melon and Denis Brusseaux were content merely to cobble together several second-hand story ideas, and it is therefore hardly surprising that the end result looks like a badly spliced together compilation of numerous French and American thrillers of the past four decades.  Jean-Pierre Melville should have been given the main writing credit, given that his films are the ones that are most obviously pillaged for ideas - it is not by accident that Daniel Auteuil's character has the same name as the lead cop in Melville's Le Cercle rouge.

To its credit, Le Guetteur does at least manage to get off to a promising start.  From the opening scene, in which a rough-round-the-edges cop (Daniel Auteuil) harangues his resolutely uncooperative prisoner (Mathieu Kassovitz), we have a shrewd idea what the film is meant to be about - a personal contest between two iron-willed individuals who, despite being on opposite sides of the law, have much in common.  What follows this appetising taster is a dramatic flashback which plunge us into the film's most spectacular set piece sequence, a tense, extremely well choreographed action shoot-out which shows Placido at his best.  The trap is sprung.  We are hooked.  We cannot wait to see what happens next.  Then, like one of those infuriating self-assembly wardrobes (the ones which come with instructions which appear to have been written by a dyslexic Martian), it all suddenly falls apart for no apparent reason.

It looks as if Placido managed to blow most of the film's budget in its first big action scene, for what ensues is far less attention grabbing - a long and tortuous manhunt that mines just about every cliché known to the thriller genre.  Clearly, the screenwriters had already grown tired of the Auteuil-Kassovitz plot strand by this stage and decided to head off down a few more blind alleys, just for their own amusement.  As the plot lurches from one Jean-Pierre Melville film to another, like a rat desperately seeking shelter in a storm, we are distracted by a subplot involving a shady doctor (Gourmet) whose hobbies including betraying his friends and killing people, and another pointless digression about a pregnant woman which appears to have been stolen from your favourite soap opera.  As disheartening as this may sound, it isn't until the unlikely relationship between the three main characters is established that the film completely loses all credibility and causes you to abandon all faith in the sacred art of screenwriting.  Admittedly, the film does just about manage to claw back some of its dignity in its concluding showdown, an ultra-violent homage to the classic western, but by this stage you're either past caring or else already seeking some desperately needed therapy at the nearest alcohol retail establishment.  There is only so much flagrant plagiarism a body can take in one sitting.

The most frustrating thing about Le Guetteur is that it has so much potential - how could it not, with such a well-stocked pool of creative talent to drawn on?  As the disenchanted cop and lone warrior living by his own code (Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Man With No Name respectively), Daniel Auteuil and Mathieu Kassovitz are well-cast and perfectly matched - both are extremely charismatic actors with a penchant for playing complex, ambiguous characters who can readily engage an audience's sympathy.  If only the writers had taken the obvious course and focussed exclusively on the relationship between Auteuil and Kassovitz's characters, if only they had jettisoned the endless digressions stuffed with clichés and half-developed characters, then this might have been a film worth watching.  Instead of a taut character-based thriller, what we are subjected to is a clumsily put together potpourri of over-worn ideas which looks as if it may have been intended for an audience suffering from a severe case of attention deficit disorder.  If you find yourself in the position of having to sit through this muddled and scarily pretentious film, just make sure you have plenty of cranberry sauce with you.  Le Guetteur looks like being the most indigestible French turkey of the year.

Film Synopsis

Parisian police chief Mattei has set up an ambush to capture a notorious gang of bank robbers.  Just as the operation looks as if it might succeed, a lone sniper appears from nowhere and systematically slaughters most of Mattei's team.  In the confusion, the crooks manage to escape, but their progress is hindered by the fact that one of them has sustained a serious injury.  Galvanised more by personal revenge than by professional duty, Mattei immediately organises a large-scale manhunt, determined to bring the robbers and their sniper accomplice to justice, whatever it costs...