!!!!! SPOILERS !!!!!
Before anyone sends me a message pointing out that CRIMSON RIVERS is in fact a French thriller let me just say I know , I think it was the fact that everyone was speaking French that convinced me of this . When I said " A Hollywood thriller " I meant that I've seen too many of these types of movies being churned out by American studios since the early 1990s and I've no idea why the legendary French film industry would want to follow suit and if you cast Robert DeNiro and Josh Hartnett in the lead roles and set it in Montana it'd still be the same film . Come to think of it wasn't this made in the mid 1990s with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt ?
For a French film this lacks a Gallic identity People are being found dead in a French rural town with their bodies slashed , their hands chopped off and their eyeballs removed and it's up to Inspector Pierre Niemens to solve the murders while on the other side of town Sgt Max Kerkeiran is investigating the desecration of a young girl's tomb . Soon it becomes clear that the two cases are linked but what really lets the story down is the misconception involving eugenics which isn't in fact a uniquely Nazi ideal . Nazis also believed in state ownership so does that mean someone on the centre left who believes public transport should be owned by the government is in a fact a Nazi ? Aldos Huxley and HG Wells both believed in the benefit of eugenics but they were very much on the political left so characters gasping " They're Nazis " seems somewhat strange and considering the political subtext is something of red herring only introduced so Max can get involved in a quite laughable fight scene with some neo-fascists .The eugenics sub plot seems somewhat tenuous . It should also be said that the idea of two intellectuals breeding more intellectuals is somewhat silly . There's no evidence in the real world that intellect is in anyway down to genetics
CRIMSON RIVERS is an okay film and I guess the producers were more interested in making a movie that would sell abroad hence the rather over familiar plot and techniques in story telling but certainly both Reno and Cassell will both be making better French movies in the future
Before anyone sends me a message pointing out that CRIMSON RIVERS is in fact a French thriller let me just say I know , I think it was the fact that everyone was speaking French that convinced me of this . When I said " A Hollywood thriller " I meant that I've seen too many of these types of movies being churned out by American studios since the early 1990s and I've no idea why the legendary French film industry would want to follow suit and if you cast Robert DeNiro and Josh Hartnett in the lead roles and set it in Montana it'd still be the same film . Come to think of it wasn't this made in the mid 1990s with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt ?
For a French film this lacks a Gallic identity People are being found dead in a French rural town with their bodies slashed , their hands chopped off and their eyeballs removed and it's up to Inspector Pierre Niemens to solve the murders while on the other side of town Sgt Max Kerkeiran is investigating the desecration of a young girl's tomb . Soon it becomes clear that the two cases are linked but what really lets the story down is the misconception involving eugenics which isn't in fact a uniquely Nazi ideal . Nazis also believed in state ownership so does that mean someone on the centre left who believes public transport should be owned by the government is in a fact a Nazi ? Aldos Huxley and HG Wells both believed in the benefit of eugenics but they were very much on the political left so characters gasping " They're Nazis " seems somewhat strange and considering the political subtext is something of red herring only introduced so Max can get involved in a quite laughable fight scene with some neo-fascists .The eugenics sub plot seems somewhat tenuous . It should also be said that the idea of two intellectuals breeding more intellectuals is somewhat silly . There's no evidence in the real world that intellect is in anyway down to genetics
CRIMSON RIVERS is an okay film and I guess the producers were more interested in making a movie that would sell abroad hence the rather over familiar plot and techniques in story telling but certainly both Reno and Cassell will both be making better French movies in the future