A good movie

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since a colleague of mine had the DVD, I thought I should give it a try. At first, I thought it was some kind of a remake of an old French TV show but, in fact, this Vidocq figure was actually a real and rather colorful guy. Indeed, he was sent to jail but managed to escape several times and later on in his life, he proposed to the police to work for them and became one of the most famous and successful police officer ever. Apparently, he has even created the first private detective agency ever. It seems that the producers first wanted to make an origin story (à la ‘Batman Begins’) but unfortunately because of some rights issue, they couldn’t do it so they settled for another story. This movie was also the directing debut of the now infamous Pitof. Pitof was originally a special effects wizard who eventually became notorious for directing the dreadful ‘Catwoman’. I know, like anyone else, I thought that ‘Catwoman’ was awful but this directing debut was actually pretty good. I mean, I have to admit, the story was pretty generic but I thought it was entertaining enough but there was a really solid cast (who else than Gérard Depardieu could portray such an historical French figure like Vidocq?) and, above all, I thought it was visually really impressive, especially for a French production. To conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, I think it is an entertaining and visually really appealing flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

7/10