Argent content (2000) User Reviews

A Brilliant Commercial

[Quadroon12 · 8/10 · 17 March 2006]

I'm simply amazed that these film-makers haven't been picked up by a major company and given a hefty budget. Those who criticise the film for being vacuous miss the point.

It is solely an exercise in advertising the film-makers wonderfully visceral skills. The tight editing, fluent camera style and aggressive direction are far and away superior to innumerable Hollywood movies.

At the end of the flick, the crooks ask for funding for their next project - something much bigger! Can it be anymore obvious what the director is making a plea for?

Somebody do themselves a favour and give these guys a huge budget. Or maybe somebody has. And they turned it down. You know what the French are like. Who knows? Who cares? I'm just trying to pad this out to 10 lines so it gets accepted.

speedy

[warumbinich · 9/10 · 21 May 2003]

great little story about 2 people robbing a bank in paris. nice pictures, fast pictures and very special pictures. good stunts. an example.. a guy with a mask, plastic overall and an mask speeds through people followed by the camera. lot of words no sin...

great camera and good rollerskaters...

bullitt? french connection? forget 'em, this is how to shoot a chase

[timbrade · 9/10 · 23 August 2001]

i saw this on channel 4 (uk) during some bizarre slot at about 1 in the morning and was instantly blown away. i've never the sense of speed and danger transferred to the screen quite as well. modern hollywood car chases always feel a bit too orchestrated, you can see they were made over about a month for about 12 seconds of screen time. its seems amazing that the makers haven't produced anything else yet. with a few more quid i'm sure they shoot the definitive chase scene. they're obviously on a death wish, or they have friends who are. i urge you to see this, though i offer no advice on how to achieve this. channel 4 please show this again. i guess that the problem with short films they're only any good for festivals. if you're the producer that keeps green-lighting those disappointing taxi movies, could you please put a few quid in the direction of Philippe Dussol (and his crazy mates), please.

Entertaining, but feels like they thought up the stunts first and the plot details later

[bob the moo · 16 March 2002]

A boy and a girl are looking for sponsorship to help them finance a robbery. They discus why they have chosen this life while their first job – a bank robbery with a high speed roller-skate escape – is told in flashback.

This is certainly a nice change of pace from most shorts I see which tend to be high on arty metaphor and low on action. This goes the other way – high on action and low on anything resembling reason. The story is interesting enough in the telling – the couple describe the frustration of spending their lives working just to pay the rent and eventually having holidays when they retire, while the job is told in black and white.

The action scenes are well handled – the fantastic camera work really gives a great impression of speed and the two skaters are very talented. The gunplay is a little like an episode of the A-team in that no one gets hit, but it's still very enjoyable. It's a little like the 20 minute LA shootout in Heat – except on skates!

Overall, it's an action short – it has it's flaws but it should be enjoyed for what it is, a nice little action scene that does have the pressure of supporting a film.

Wow, one of the most exciting short film I've ever seen!

[jeanjeannie38 · 10/10 · 24 June 2001]

Forget car chases, the roller skate chase of the two bank robbers in this short is, spellbindingly, delightful! The allusion to "Killing Zoe", with regard to the robbers' disguise, is tongue in cheek and quite amusing.

I've watched this film twice and each time it captured my attention completely!!!

I look forward, enthusiastically, to this director's future offerings!

Great Story and Action - The best short I've ever seen

[badawat3 · 21 September 2002]

You cannot take your eyes off this!

Hollywood doesn't make it this good either! I would love to know how long it took them the make!

(possible spoiler!)

As Bob the Moo points out - the action is amazing - centered around what appears to be a Bank Robbery - however - if you listen and watch a bit more closely, it becomes apparant that the interview is not about a Bank Robbery but their next project - thier next film...

They were selling themselves as film makers all the way through!

A great twist! You must see it -if you can get the chance!

I hope to see something a bit longer from Philippe Dussol,

Super French Cool

[Freq-4 · 29 May 2001]

Wow, nobodies written a review for this? Shame shame. This short is definitely one of the best I've ever seen, and yes, I've seen quite a few. Following two roller skating bank robbers in their ambitious ‘project', the action is interspersed using a dialogue with the two in question as timefiller. Think the chase scenes from Heat and Ronin, a Dobermann theme, put it all on skates, and you're pretty much there. Lasting about 18 minutes, the film is a long short, but goes quickly thanks to the fast, although very quiet soundtrack. The opening shot is drawn out, and after the first few seconds, you can tell the sound effect of the skates is looped, which suggests a stingy producer. However, any preconceptions to the budgetary diet are lost after the skaters evade the police; skating backwards down a raised glass tunnel simultaneously returning fire at the cops, glass exploding everywhere. There are also some pretty darn cool stunts, and hats off to both the camera-man and the stunt skaters, although as far as I know, the actors may well have done their own stunts. The skaters aren't idealised either; there are occasions when they fall, which, (although I wouldn't have done so) drops the viewer back into reality. The sense of speed compared to the actors lack of finesse, seems exaggerated, probably because of the low slung camera and as said before, fast soundtrack. Judicious use of slow-motion (so hard to find nowadays) also adds to the general feeling of cool, almost constantly present. I just hope some producer somewhere will finance their next ‘project', showing the world that the French are good for other things than classy porn, and fine art. No wait, I mixed something up there