ischwensen Review of Empire of the Wolves

Empire of the Wolves (2005)

A mixed bag - With a little help from fellow IMDb reviewers

[6/10 · 19 November 2017]

In my experience fellow user-reviews like on IMDb can be, but don't have to be of course, very helpful. Either in deciding whether to watch a movie, or for the purpose of getting a better understanding of it afterwards. So I am always grateful when a reviewer took his time, and actually helped me along in a good way. That said, 'L'empire des loups'by director Chris Nahon is a case in point. The cinematography is ambitious, and it's not just l'art pour l'art, it works in enhancing our viewing experience, at the same time keeping up with the several plot twists this movie abounds, or drowns, in. The musical scores aren't some ready-made products but try to punctuate the action,sometimes successfully, sometimes less so; but always staying high enough above average to strengthen their scenes. The lead actors are engaged, and deliver mostly believable performances of the characters they are given. Especially Arly Jover as „Anna", anyway Jean Reno as the shady and brutal ex-cop Schiffer, but also Jocelyn Quivrin as the not too stereotypical younger homicide cop Nerteaux. The occurring shortcomings seemed to me to be not their fault but clearly the director's. Watch 'L'empire des loups' in the French original by the way, with your preferred subtitles as I did (German), to make the most of the cast's efforts. But these caveats concerning the actors' performances – 'the characters they are given' and so on – lead me to the main problem of this on a superficial level entertaining, partly also quite captivating movie. On the one hand it contains rather a few plot twists. Some generally foreseeable, others considerably unbelievable. And although I'm unable to come up with any better alternatives for the script writers to get out of the - in the structure of this plot inevitable, I guess – dead ends, they still should have made a better effort. On the other hand, and that brings me back to my introduction, beyond just plot twists and the like this movie simply degrades the further it progresses. This process works just as fellow IMDb reviewer „kosmasp" has already shown in a rather moody review in 2007. He writes „… you will notice the point where the movie breaks ... where it won't only get ridiculous, but the movie also falls to pieces." And he's right. I noticed this - in a way, to be honest - while watching it, and could see it clearly in retrospect after reading his review. In fact, this movie is a textbook example of the Hegelian notion that merely quantitative changes beyond a certain point pass into qualitative differences – Marx's words, not mine. Anyhow, thank you, kosmasp, though I don't follow in your harsher rating of only four stars, because I still think that 'L'empire des loups' displays many positive facets that I enjoyed on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Four stars I assign to the many, sometimes seemingly unavoidable, movies much worse than this one. It deserves a five, I gave the lead actors a six. But maybe that's being a bit too friendly?