RIVALS / LES LIENS DU SANG - entirely predictable French "thriller"

Writer-director Jacques Maillot recreates 1970s France in scrupulous detail in his new thriller LES LIENS DU SANG (mis-leadingly translated for its English release as RIVALS). The costumes, hair-styles, props, cars, cigarettes, music - you simply cannot fault the achievement of the production team. The problem is that while this movie is based on the true story of two brothers - one a cop, one a murderer - it lacks any narrative momentum or emotional engagement. François Cluzet plays Gaby - the errant elder brother to Guillaume Canet's straight-laced younger brother, François. Even though he disapproves of Gaby's lifestyle, François helps him get a job and a place to stay when he's released from prison. At first it seems as though Gaby will turn his life around, but the petty frustrations of life lead him back into high stakes crime. Accordingly, the denouement sees a predictable clash between the cop and the pimp. The key point about this film is that it isn't some big-budget slick police thriller pitting two rivals against each other in the manner of THE DEPARTED. It's small scale in the best sense - focusing on the banal reality of staking out prostitutes in small towns. The problem is that having taken such an approach you have to work even harder to gain and keep the audience's attention, and I just don't think this slow-paced, predictable film ever succeeds. As good as these actors are, the characters are all two-dimensional cliches. As a result, the denouement simply doesn't pack the required emotional punch.

LES LIENS DU SANG was released in Belgium and France in February and is currently on release in the UK as RIVALS.

TELL NO-ONE/NE LE DIS A PERSONNE - teeeeeee-dious "thriller"

Inside the bloated two hour run-time of TELL NO-ONE is a decent thriller screaming to get out. But sadly, as it is, this movie is over-long, poorly directed and woefully un-thrilling.

Based on a novel by Harlan Coben, the movie has been adapted and directed by the young French director Guillaume Canet. François Cluzet plays a grieving pediatrician called Alex Beck. Beck receives an email from his wife, who was apparently brutally murdered eight years previously. At the same time, the police re-open her murder case when they un-earth two bodies near Beck's country estate. Beck goes on the run from the police, seeking help from the criminal types he meets in his clinic and from his sister (Marina Hands) and her lover (Kristin Scott Thomas.) Eventually, not so much through his own cunning as other's need to talk, Beck discovers the truth.

My problems with the movie are many and various. The pacing is way too slow. The structure too meandering. Cluzot chooses to play Beck as unemotive - which makes his screen-time really dull. The deep dark secret at the centre is easy to spot if you pay attention to the huge big random bits of information that are clumsily dropped in half way through. Thereafter, the film unfolds slowly and the deep dark secret is treated simply as a plot motivator rather than explored in the depth that it deserves. Treating that particular issue as a Macguffin is especially tasteless. The denouement is even more annoying. After a supposedly tense, adult thriller we are left to wallow in sun-kissed sentimentalism that feels completely out-of-place. Frankly, this movie is a mess.

TELL NO-ONE/NE LE DIS A PERSONNE opened in the Czech Republic, Belgium, France, and Switzerland in 2006 and in Russia, the Ukraine, Israel and Turkey earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK and the US. It opens in Sweden in August and in Finland on September 28th.