I'm going to give it a 6 partly because it was shot in Paris, Nice, and Arles. It gives you a tourist's eye view of France in the winter, including a chilly, overcast Riviera and Van Gogh's Yellow House, morphed into what looks like an overpriced café.
Other than that, this is an action movie stripped down to the bare bones. The characters are as rudimentary as the plot. A handful of unemployed professionals are hired by Natascha McIlhone (representing the Irish) to ambush a convoy of cars transporting a curious-looking case, the contents of which have been sold to the Russians. I think I've got that right. If I haven't, it doesn't matter. The conspicuously aluminum case is an operational definition of a MacGuffin. What's in it? Who knows and who cares? The whole movie is built around its action sequences and they are plentiful. There is a meeting between the professionals and the French gangsters who are to supply them with equipment for the heist. It turns into a shoot out. The convoy is intercepted and it turns into a car chase. It ends in a shoot out, during which one of the professionals, Gregor, turns into a cockroach. There's another car chase through tunnels and whatnot that destroys so many vehicles it surely would have cleared even the Parisian streets of traffic. The end involves a couple of murders. Even Katarina Witt gets it, which is a dirty trick.
Novelties? Not too many. Well, I suppose that in the course of these pursuits and battles, it's a novelty to see innocent bystanders get plowed down or shot up or blown up. The zipping cars smash through the usual food stands and push carts but I don't remember their ever doing it on such narrow streets.
There isn't any noticeable development of character. That is, nobody changes in any fundamental way. Michael Lonsdale, as a rich old man, and Stellan Skarsgard, as Gregor the dung beetle, give the best performances. Rober DeNiro, a fine actor, seems out of place in all this European company. Natascha McIlhone has a somber, angular, and sexy face but I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, which isn't very far. I like Jean Reno best of all. Regard that face, that voice! The guy looks like he's coming down from a week-long bout with the bottle. There aren't that many international movie stars at whom I can look without saying to myself, "I wish I were that handsome." Aside from bullets and baggage, what is the movie about? It seems to be about itself. There's nothing much behind what you see. It's like buying "roast beef" at a modern deli. Roast beef, my foot. It's machine-processed beef, scraped right down to the bone, then pureed and solidified and seasoned so that it looks a little -- just a little -- like what it purports to be. There's some phony philosophy from Michael Lonsdale's sage, who tells DeNiro the story of the forty-seven ronin -- who planned and waited for years for an opportunity to avenge their betrayed master -- but it has nothing to do with the movie. Lonsdale's thoughtfully delivered lesson might as well have been the Gilgamesh epic, or Huckleberry Finn, for that matter. It's an attempt to coat the plot with some portentous uber-meaning, but that just makes it the same processed stuff under a thin, negligible shell of pastry, like Beef Wellington.
I've made this sound like a pretty crummy movie but it's not, if you like action movies. The director knows exactly what he's doing. The editing is superb, as it has to be to make this genre piece a success. The shootouts, collisions, and deaths are in real time, not slow motion. It may not be pregnant with meaning but it's diverting, exciting, and not insulting to the viewer who's willing to shrug and say, "For an action movie, this one isn't too bad."
Other than that, this is an action movie stripped down to the bare bones. The characters are as rudimentary as the plot. A handful of unemployed professionals are hired by Natascha McIlhone (representing the Irish) to ambush a convoy of cars transporting a curious-looking case, the contents of which have been sold to the Russians. I think I've got that right. If I haven't, it doesn't matter. The conspicuously aluminum case is an operational definition of a MacGuffin. What's in it? Who knows and who cares? The whole movie is built around its action sequences and they are plentiful. There is a meeting between the professionals and the French gangsters who are to supply them with equipment for the heist. It turns into a shoot out. The convoy is intercepted and it turns into a car chase. It ends in a shoot out, during which one of the professionals, Gregor, turns into a cockroach. There's another car chase through tunnels and whatnot that destroys so many vehicles it surely would have cleared even the Parisian streets of traffic. The end involves a couple of murders. Even Katarina Witt gets it, which is a dirty trick.
Novelties? Not too many. Well, I suppose that in the course of these pursuits and battles, it's a novelty to see innocent bystanders get plowed down or shot up or blown up. The zipping cars smash through the usual food stands and push carts but I don't remember their ever doing it on such narrow streets.
There isn't any noticeable development of character. That is, nobody changes in any fundamental way. Michael Lonsdale, as a rich old man, and Stellan Skarsgard, as Gregor the dung beetle, give the best performances. Rober DeNiro, a fine actor, seems out of place in all this European company. Natascha McIlhone has a somber, angular, and sexy face but I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, which isn't very far. I like Jean Reno best of all. Regard that face, that voice! The guy looks like he's coming down from a week-long bout with the bottle. There aren't that many international movie stars at whom I can look without saying to myself, "I wish I were that handsome." Aside from bullets and baggage, what is the movie about? It seems to be about itself. There's nothing much behind what you see. It's like buying "roast beef" at a modern deli. Roast beef, my foot. It's machine-processed beef, scraped right down to the bone, then pureed and solidified and seasoned so that it looks a little -- just a little -- like what it purports to be. There's some phony philosophy from Michael Lonsdale's sage, who tells DeNiro the story of the forty-seven ronin -- who planned and waited for years for an opportunity to avenge their betrayed master -- but it has nothing to do with the movie. Lonsdale's thoughtfully delivered lesson might as well have been the Gilgamesh epic, or Huckleberry Finn, for that matter. It's an attempt to coat the plot with some portentous uber-meaning, but that just makes it the same processed stuff under a thin, negligible shell of pastry, like Beef Wellington.
I've made this sound like a pretty crummy movie but it's not, if you like action movies. The director knows exactly what he's doing. The editing is superb, as it has to be to make this genre piece a success. The shootouts, collisions, and deaths are in real time, not slow motion. It may not be pregnant with meaning but it's diverting, exciting, and not insulting to the viewer who's willing to shrug and say, "For an action movie, this one isn't too bad."