LES VOLEURS |
| CREDITS: Director: Andre Techine Cast: Catherine Deneuve & Daniel Auteuil France
(subtitled) 1996 (18) INTRODUCTION: A French crime thriller starring Deneuve (she's still got it) as a lesbian. There is a God! And I swear to him/her that this will be my last review to mention Tarentino, this week, admittedly that's only because it comes last alphabetically. SYNOPSIS: Seedy cop Alex (Autteuil) and Philosophy Lecturer Marie (Deneuve) are brought into conflict when they both fall for the same girl. Unfortunately for them the girl is unbalanced and involved in a dangerous car theft ring. The two disparate characters must work together to protect her from herself and her criminal friends. REVIEW: To be perfectly honest that synopsis isn't even vaguely accurate. This is a large sprawling movie focusing on various characters and the events that bring them into contact with each other. Marie the professor, Alex the cop, Ivan the gang leader, Ivan's son Justin, Ivan's right hand man Jimmy and of course the disturbed young girl, all drift in and out of each others lives with alarming regularity, building up a complex web of interrelationships that I couldn't even begin to describe in a three line synopsis. Just to make matters worse the film isn't even linear, jumping backwards and forwards in time, cutting between the stories of the various characters, and showing their differing views of the same event, this film quickly confuses. A multi-plot storyline, shown from the view point of various characters in a non-linear pattern culminating and starting with a heist gone awry, starring an ageing film star who hasn't had a decent part since the seventies, I hated "Pulp Fiction". Thank God this film is nothing like that. French Traction with a clever twist, It's actually good. Mutt's Rating: **** |