Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this flick, I was quite eager to check it out. The funny thing is that, somehow, I first saw ‘Criminal’, the US remake, and, surprisingly, it took me 10 years to finally see this original version. Fortunately, this way, I didn’t remember much about the remake which didn’t spoil this movie for me. Anyway, since this movie has a really strong reputation, I had some rather high expectations. However, even though I had to admit that it was indeed pretty good, to be honest, it wasn’t much more than that though. I mean, I always loved movies dealing with con artists and I have to admit that this movie is probably one of the best in this genre. On top of that, Ricardo Darín and Gastón Pauls both delivered some solid performances, especially Darín. Eventually, what bothered me with this movie was that it wasn’t as clever as many might argue. I mean, as long they were focusing on some small cons, it felt really genuine and quite spellbinding to behold. The problem is that, right from the start, it was obvious that one of the characters was running some long con so the ending turned out to be hardly surprising after all. The other thing with this conclusion is that it meant that roughly 90% of what you saw was actually fake which was not only frustrating but also not really convincing. For example, right from the very first scene at the gas station, how could Juan know that everything Marcos would do would exactly fit his ‘master’ plan? Then, from the moment Marcos gets a phone call from his sister, everything became some kind of theatre play during which virtually everyone talking to him from this point on was basically some actor. Sure, it might seem amazing but while I have to admit that it was entertaining, it didn’t really impress me that much because it was just too convoluted.  Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn't turn out to be such a masterpiece after all, it was still a solid thriller and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Wayne Kramer and since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, Kramer is another director who started with a really strong debut (‘The Cooler’) but then, each of his following directorial effort has been weaker than the previous one. It was especially the case with this last project, some kind of ‘Pulp Fiction’ clone, which was basically destroyed by the critics. Well, to be honest, I actually did like the 1^st tale involving some hilarious junkies involved in one of the most misguided hold-ups I have ever seen. Indeed, the tone was perfect and it was one of the rare occasions that some really stupid characters actually turned out to be quite entertaining. I was also rather impressed by Paul Walker and it is rather tragic that the guy finally displayed some acting skills in the last movie he released before his death. The 2^nd tale with Matt Dillon at the centre also had some potential and it worked fine, as far as I was concerned, up until the point that he discovered all these women locked up in these cages. Indeed, so far, it was taking place in a realistic small US town but this development was just too much over-the-top and, to be honest, the whole thing never really recovered from this misguided choice. Then, you had this 3^rd and final tale involving some Elvis impersonator which was not only tedious but also borderline cringe-inducing to behold. The fact that this Elvis impersonator was played by Brendan Fraser, in my opinion, one of the most underwhelming actors ever, obviously didn’t help. Anyway, to conclude, in contrary to the really harsh reviews that this movie has received and even if I have to admit that it was indeed Wayne Kramer’s weakest movie so far, I still think it is actually worth a look, if only to see Paul Walker actually acting for once. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but since it was starring Sylvester Stallone, I thought I might as well check it out. Unfortunately, Stallone has never been one of the greatest actors in the world but, when he gets involved in such obvious paycheck gigs, well, he is pretty much unwatchable, I’m afraid. At least, even if the promotional material might make you think otherwise, he was involved only in a few scenes though. Anyway, Stallone was not even the biggest problem since pretty much nothing worked in this movie. Seriously, the intro was just so weak that I was actually glad when they finally started to shoot at each other. Concerning the cast, well you had two famous actors (Sylvester Stallone and Matthew Modine) who both delivered some of their worst performances and a cast made of unknown or rather obscure actors who were just as weak. Basically, it is the kind of movies in which every small or even slightly bigger female characters was played by some cute random but always talentless actress. Seriously, even the girl reading the news was not convincing whatsoever. Concerning the story, well, it managed to be rather generic but also far-fetched at the same time but it was definitely never entertaining whatsoever. Eventually, when you think about it, you might wonder who was actually the main character (simple, there was none) and the way they actually sided with Modine’s character at the end was just ludicrous. Anyway, to conclude, I wonder if it was the worst movie I have seen starring Stallone, but even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t far from it and you should definitely avoid the damned thing. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Mike Newell and since it was starring Lily James, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, with this title, I was expecting a rather cheesy vintage picture about some stuffy book club but I have to admit that the damned thing turned out to be not bad at all after all. Indeed, I actually didn’t know that the Guernsey Island had been occupied by the Nazis while the rest of the UK was free so it was really interesting to learn about this rather obscure page of history. I thought it was also quite brilliant that this group of people would start a book club as a social event providing a way to escape the daily horrors of the occupation and to simply meet some kindred spirits. Finally, the lovely Lily James delivered another solid performance and she had some nice chemistry with Michiel Huisman. Eventually, if they would have simply focused on these elements, the damned thing could have been actually really good but, unfortunately, they kept adding some stuff to give the whole thing some extra dramatic edge. Indeed, not only the love triangle involving Lily James, Michiel Huisman and Glen Powell was terribly generic, tedious and above all completely unnecessary, there was just too much drama going on with Elizabeth McKenna, the character played by Jessica Brown Findlay. I mean, it did make sense that a member of the book club would have been deported by the Germans at some point but everything else around this character was just too much. The day before, I actually saw ‘Umimachi Diary’ which I really loved but it was in fact criticized by some critics for its complete lack of dramatic edge. However, this movie was the completely opposite as it was a perfect example of a fine story which was compromised by too many superfluous dramatic turns. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was in fact much better than I expected and it is actually worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, once again, Koreeda really impressed me and, for some reason, I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed the damned thing (which was probably because I did watch way too much garbage lately). I have to admit that I did struggle a little bit to follow everyone’s story (for example, I still don’t know what actually happened to Suzu’s mother… I guess she died at some point but I’m afraid I missed that bit of information…). Furthermore, there were 4 sisters, their deceased father who was married with 3 different women, their grandmother, their grandmother’s sister, …. Basically, it was quite lot of people to deal with and, as a result, none of them was really developed but it wasn’t a deal breaker though. Indeed, I always admired Koreeda as one of the most humanist directors that ever lived and, with this movie, he just surpassed himself. In most movies, some of the characters would have some kind of personal agenda with the goal of breaking up this sisterhood and, as we have been conditioned by decades of generic storytelling, we actually expect that something horrible will happen to them at some point but, no, fortunately, it never happened. Instead, you get a set of vastly different but all intriguing young women who were dealt some pretty shitty cards but still made the best of it and, all together, they managed to find such a beautiful and inspiring harmony. Anyway, to conclude, I’m not sure if it is Koreeda's best movie but it was not far from it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I actually have no idea how I actually ended up watching this movie. Indeed, I watch tons of movies for some really lame reasons but, in this case, I seriously couldn’t remember why actually did record this movie about a year ago. I mean, it wasn’t a really critical success and it didn’t win any prestigious prize. Was it because of the title? My guess is because it was directed by Aleksandr Sokurov whose work I’m not familiar with but the guy seems to have a decent reputation. Anyway, this movie definitely had some potential but I still struggled to connect with the damned thing. You might think that it was a documentary but it was much more original than that. Indeed, in my opinion, it was some kind of collage combining so many things together. I mean, you had some voice-over and dialogues in 4 different languages (Russian, French, English, German) even by Sokurov himself, you had some reproduction footage of WWII, some archive footage, some more or less random footage of modern Paris and a lot of footage of Le Louvres and of the Art displayed at Le Louvres (probably the main attraction of this flick). There were some interesting ideas about Art, history and our relationship with Art through the last 4 centuries but, to be honest, the whole thing was still too random for my taste. Furthermore, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it really mattered that Jacques Jaujard (the director of Le Louvres during WWII) and Franz Wolff-Metternich (the Nazi officer who was responsible for the conservation of the French art collections) did get along fairly well and managed to protect all these Artistic items while millions were dying in the meantime. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but I was planning to watch all the Clouseau films so I still wanted to check this one at some point. Well, as expected, the damned thing turned out to so misguided. Basically, after the successful ‘The Pink Panther’ and ‘A Shot in the Dark’, they didn’t exactly rush to come up with a 3^rd instalment starring the famous French inspector and, at some point, both Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers declined to participate. For Alan Arkin, it was such a bad decision that it could have completely derailed his promising career who just had started a few years before. However, Arkin was definitely not the biggest problem here and, at least, he did try to give his own spin on this iconic character (like Steve Martin would try almost 40 years later) but it was still weird to see Clouseau being played by someone else than Peter Sellers. A bigger issue beside the fact that pretty much all the jokes were rather lame was that the whole thing was just so poorly put together. For example, at some point, Clouseau went to visit a convict in prison called Addison Steele. At some point, Steele managed to put Clouseau to sleep with some chloroform and to hide in some box and then… well, actually nothing happened afterwards. Indeed, they then switched to a completely different scene involving Clouseau visiting a colleague from Scotland Yard with some fancy gadgets and, at no point, they actually acknowledged what happened in the previous scene. Later on, you did get to see Steele involved with his gangster colleagues so you might  assume that he managed to escape somehow but it gives you an idea of how terribly clumsy the whole thing was. Anyway, to conclude, I always thought that the Pink Panther movies involving Steve Martin were terrible but this movie was maybe even worse and you should pretty much avoid the damned thing. 

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was starring John Travolta, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I thought it was not so bad after all. First of all, it is always a pleasure to see Travolta playing such articulate laid-back gangsters, sure, it is pretty much something that he could do in his sleep, but he is always entertaining in this mode. In this case, I wish he would have showed up more often but he was obviously not one of the main characters, even if the poster might make you think otherwise. Concerning the story itself, it was nothing really original but what made this movie stands out from the countless similar generic thrillers that come out every day were the dialogues. Sure, it wasn’t at the level of a masterpiece like ‘Pulp Fiction’ (which was definitely an inspiration for the writer) but they were still quite effective and, above all, quite entertaining. Concerning the ending, it was obviously brought up to make the whole thing look more clever than it actually was and I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming. However, it was rather far-fetched and I’m afraid it did create a bunch of plot holes. Above all, was it really necessary? It is interesting to note that this movie was actually Jackie Earle Haley’s directorial debut and you wonder what was basically his endgame here. I mean, the damned thing had some potential but it was still way too generic to really make much waves. Anyway, to conclude, even if I might be giving the damned thing too much credit, it turned out to be a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was starring Olga Kurylenko and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. The interesting thing with this actress is that she always had a rather versatile career, in fact, she actually started her acting career with such French productions. As a result, it was pretty neat to see for her for the 1^st time playing in a French movie, even though, it took me so much time to get used to hear her speaking in French (Seriously, I even thought for a while that she had been dubbed). Unfortunately, Kurylenko has also spent at least half of her career showing up in some really weak stuff and this movie was definitely one of those, I’m afraid. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked in this flick. First of all, its title and the presentation they gave at the beginning would make you think that it would be about ‘vigipirate’, the French anti-terrorism policy, but, except the fact it was the job of the main character, it had actually nothing to do with the plot after all. Instead, they gave us a really generic and predictable story about a traumatized soldier becoming a vigilante. Concerning the directing, it was just so flat and uninspired, it was not much better than a really cheap TV movie. And, yet, the main character had some potential and Kurylenko gave a solid performance, even if she looked way too thin for a seasoned and highly trained soldier. Anyway, to conclude, it’s such a pity that Olga Kurylenko very often wastes her potential in such lame movies and, even if this movie might not be the worst she has made, it was still really weak and you should pretty much avoid it. 

To be honest, I had no idea what this movie was about but since it was starring Judi Dench, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, at some point, I did hear about this Russian spy who had worked undercover in England for decades and it was definitely a strong story with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was slightly disappointing that, even though they mentioned that it was indeed based on a true story, it was so loosely based on what actually happened that pretty much everything was actually made up. I mean, when they start even changing the name of the main character then you can be sure that they will seriously deviate from what actually took place. Furthermore, even though Judi Dench was displayed prominently on all the promotional material, they actually really struggled to give her anything to do through the whole duration. On the other hand, Sophie Cookson was actually pretty good and I did appreciate the fact that they really did try to develop this character and explain why she did what she did. Indeed, it went beyond a simple infatuation with some Russian agent and she really believed that she would ensure a better world by helping the USSR to also get the atomic bomb. Still, it’s too bad the movie spent too much time with her romantic intrigues, indeed, with some Russian agent and with her co-worker who would eventually become her husband. It would have been so much more interesting if they had developed more the motivations behind the actions of the other characters such as Leo, Sonya and William. Anyway, to conclude, even if the movie itself was not really great, it was still dealing with a rather fascinating story and, only therefore, I think it is actually worth a look.