Reviews by johanlefourbe

What the hell happened to Mathieu Kassovitz? After ‘La Haine’, everyone expected him to become one of the most interesting directors of his generation but his career turned out to be rather underwhelming. This movie is a perfect example. Indeed, it was apparently a labor of love for Kassovitz and he spent 5 years developing this comic-book adaptation. Unfortunately, the whole thing turned to a nightmare for Kassovitz who was apparently never allowed to shot the movie as he planned to do as the studio was apparently constantly interfering during the shooting and also during the post-production resulting in a visually interesting movie with a rather boring plot. It’s too bad because Vin Diesel gave here one of his best performances (apparently, Kassovitz couldn’t stand working with him) and the mood of the whole movie was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the story was nothing original and didn’t grab me at all, Mélanie Thierry looked fine but all, seriously, all her lines were just terrible... Eventually, the whole thing was just a wasted opportunity and Matthieu Kassovitz completely discarded this movie when it was released. To conclude, I wonder if the talented French director will ever recover from this mess but even though it could have been awesome, the end-result was really disappointing and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was really eager to check it out again. By now, I have seen all the movies directed by Wong Kar-Wai and, eventually, even though I have a great admiration for his work, I came to the conclusion that I’m actually not really a huge fan. This movie is however the exception. Indeed, it was the very first movie I saw from this director, it definitely had a really strong impact on me and it is still by far my favorite. As usual with this director, it was a really gorgeous movie with a great sountrack and not one but two very mesmerizing love-stories. The 2nd tale was slightly better and, Tony Leung, who still is after all these years my favorite Asian actor, was as usual really strong in this movie. Eventually, this director was always more interested in the mood than telling an actual story and the whole thing was just quite fascinating to behold. Anyway, to conclude, after all these years, I still love this movie, it is one of my favorite romantic movies and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Wong Kar-Wai's work.

Of course, I already saw this movie many times but since it was a while back, I was quite eager to check it out again. In fact, when it was released, I must have been 14 or 15 years old and I saw it three times in the theatre, the 1st time in French and then twice in English. As a matter of fact, I have a rather nice anecdote about this. Indeed, it was the 1st time I saw an original version with subtitles and I was completely blown away by Bruce Willis's real voice. When I was just a kid, I used to watch 'Die Hard' with my dad and, in the French dub, they gave him this very specific high tuned squeaky voice. Suddenly, I was confronted with his real voice which was, of course, really deep and masculine. At that point, I realized that dubbed movies were actually really crappy and I'm so glad I live nowadays in the Netherlands were only animated features and children movies are dubbed. So, as far as I'm concerned, that was the first impact I got from this movie but, of course, it went way beyond that. For example, the whole hyperlink thing and the way the story was not chronologically told was just completely amazing. Of course, it wasn't the first time that those tricks were used but, back then, it was the first time I saw something like that and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one. The point is that Tarantino managed to make an Artsy flick without making it dreary and, for once, you could watch something which was smartly built up and also having a great time watching it. What else should I add ? The music was great (one of the best selling soundtracks ever), the dialogues were awesome, the cast was awesome (with a major come-back for John Travolta) and the whole thing was just so damned entertaining to watch. To be honest, I sometimes struggled with Tarantino’s most recent work but this movie is still an impressive masterpiece and a must-see for any decent movie lover.

We often talk about how many actors managed to make some impressive come-backs in their career but, very often, we tend to forget that for some directors, the path was also pretty hazardous and David O. Russell is one perfect example. Indeed, after helming 3 movies, he was hailed as the next best thing. Unfortunately, even though Russell was definitely a talented director, he also had some issues and he got the reputation of being quite impossible to work with. As a result, Russell managed to make only one movie between 1999 and 2010, the barely seen ‘I Heart Huckabees’. Even though this movie barely got noticed when it was released, I was still eager to check it out but what a weird movie... Seriously, it must be one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. It was basically some kind of surrealist comedy and David O. Russell himself referred to it as his ‘midlife crisis movie’. I thought it was not bad at all and there was a really impressive  cast involved (Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Saïd Taghmaoui, Jonah Hill, Isla Fisher, Talia Shire and even Shania Twain). Seriously, if you think that Mark Wahlberg can't act, you should really check this movie. To conclude, even though it is probably an acquire taste, it was a nice daft comedy and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in David O. Russell’s work.