An average movie

Back in the 90’s, I saw ‘Le Poulpe’ and I really enjoyed it so, with this in mind, I was really eager to check Guillaume Nicloux’s following directing effort. Basically, it was another neo-noir feature involving an investigation by some private detective but even though it was fairly entertaining, I thought it was not as successful as ‘Le Poulpe’. First of all, they dropped all the dry humor which was the main quality in his previous feature and what was left was a rather generic detective feature. Furthermore, even though Thierry Lhermitte (an actor I never really liked or admired) did the best he could playing a character against type, honestly, he didn’t come near the level of awesomeness portrayed by Jean-Pierre Darroussin in ‘Le Poulpe’. Basically, I think Nicloux was quite ambitious with this flick and he tried to make something more serious this time but I think it actually backfired and the end-result was slightly disappointing. On a side note, you get to see a younger Marion Cotillard many years before she became an international star which was definitely a plus. To conclude, even though it didn’t really live up to my expectations, it was still a rather entertaining flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

6/10