Trafic d’influence (1999) - film review

Two corrupt politicians, Maxime de Labardière and Gérard Ravanelli, are each served with a five-year prison sentence for fraud and abuse of their position.  A young female police officer, Sandrine Athan, is tasked with escorting the two men to prison.   Unbeknown to Athan, Labardière is in possession of a CD which implicates some high-ranking ministers in a financial scandal. Two hit-men are sent to recover the CD and kill Athan and her two charges.  Narrowly surviving a first attack, Athan perseveres with her errand, which is to ensure that Labardière and Ravanelli reach their prison intact.  Unfortunately, the whole of France seems to have gone on strike, and the hit-men are not going to give up easily…

One-time writer for French TV’s cult comedy groups Les Nuls, Dominique Farrugia directed this madcap comedy-thriller – not his best work, but an entertaining divertissement which offers some good laughs.  Any film with Gérard Jugnot is worth watching and here, as ever, the popular actor gives great entertainment value.  By contrast, Thierry Lhermitte’s contribution is almost negligible and Aure Atika (playing a testosterone-charged Julie Lescaut caricature on speed) is just plain irritating, a bland unsympathetic portrayal of a silly two dimensional character (with a gun).  Things are not helped by the idiotic comic book plot, which shows far less sophistication than you would have expected of Farrugia.  Had there been a little more of the satirical commentary and a lot less of mindless mimicry of American-style action thrillers, this would have made a far more satisfactory film.  Still, the film does have at least one decent mobile phone joke...

© James Travers 2005

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