Frantic Reviews

Honestly,even though I’m a huge of Roman Polanski’s work,  I thought this movie was rather disappointing. Basically, it is probably the most mainstream feature coming from the Polish director and it is probably even more accessible than 'The Ninth gate' so it  was really perfect for the mainstream audience who might be intimated by his darker work. I mean, to be honest, it was actually not bad all. As a matter of fact, the intro was just brilliant. Indeed, Harrison Ford gets to Paris with his wife, check into a hotel. He goes to the bathroom or something and suddenly, when he comes back, his wife is gone! Up to that point and included the next 30 minutes, the whole thing was just spellbinding to watch and it was just awesome to see this average guy very well played by Harrison Ford losing his head because he has lost his wife without a shred of explanation. Unfortunately, at some point, they had to explain what was exactly going on and that’s when the movie really became truly disappointing. It is quite obvious that Polanski didn't care much about the plot which was rather weak, especially the second part, and cared more about the mood which was pretty cool. Honestly, I don't remember much about the whole explanation, what I do remember is that it was a really weak disposable conspiracy theory, the typical stuff you get in your average thriller. Coming out from someone as brilliant as Polanski, this was a real letdown. To conclude, even though it is one of the weakest efforts by Roman Polanski, probably his most commercial outing, it is still worth a look though, if only for the brilliant first 30 minutes.