***** SPOILERS ******
With 32 reviews at 7/20/2003 and growing, there is little to add. My sad report is that this film falls apart after the the 70% mark. It is great in the main, but NOT great all the way through.
Its pluses are good energy, sound shaping, camera and lighting, and until the proverbial shark-jump, terrific editing and direction. A very interesting choice of protagonists: imagine a THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR or a BONNIE & CLYDE without pretty people.
But then when the stage is all set for Paul to rip-off Marchand drug money (?) at a questionable dance club, under the general advice and guidance of the more intelligent lip-reading Carla, one editing mistake follows on the heels of another. The gangster scenes are tedious and clumsy and the plot itself wallows in indecision.
One reviewer asks about a sub-text: Paul's parole officer's wife goes missing early in the film. Is this a distraction? Why do we care? I found it, yes, distracting, but clearly it was a signal in case we didn't get the film's point from other cues.
For a cautious woman like Carla to venture out, to "walk on the wild side", to "cross the line", turns out not to be such a moral leap after all. Because the parole officer -- the epitome of legality and moral rectitude, turned out to be a greater criminal even than the ex-felon that he was charged with supervising. A profound counter-point it certainly was not!
For those who have seen it and want a one sentence plot analogy, this film could be compared, loosely, to the Heather Graham/Luke Wilson misfire, COMMITTED (2000).
Thrill to the best parts, snack and chat through the laborious ending. French cinema is still as inventive and courageous as ever.
With 32 reviews at 7/20/2003 and growing, there is little to add. My sad report is that this film falls apart after the the 70% mark. It is great in the main, but NOT great all the way through.
Its pluses are good energy, sound shaping, camera and lighting, and until the proverbial shark-jump, terrific editing and direction. A very interesting choice of protagonists: imagine a THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR or a BONNIE & CLYDE without pretty people.
But then when the stage is all set for Paul to rip-off Marchand drug money (?) at a questionable dance club, under the general advice and guidance of the more intelligent lip-reading Carla, one editing mistake follows on the heels of another. The gangster scenes are tedious and clumsy and the plot itself wallows in indecision.
One reviewer asks about a sub-text: Paul's parole officer's wife goes missing early in the film. Is this a distraction? Why do we care? I found it, yes, distracting, but clearly it was a signal in case we didn't get the film's point from other cues.
For a cautious woman like Carla to venture out, to "walk on the wild side", to "cross the line", turns out not to be such a moral leap after all. Because the parole officer -- the epitome of legality and moral rectitude, turned out to be a greater criminal even than the ex-felon that he was charged with supervising. A profound counter-point it certainly was not!
For those who have seen it and want a one sentence plot analogy, this film could be compared, loosely, to the Heather Graham/Luke Wilson misfire, COMMITTED (2000).
Thrill to the best parts, snack and chat through the laborious ending. French cinema is still as inventive and courageous as ever.