Urgence (1985)

Urgence is a French thriller film first released in 1985, directed by Gilles Béhat.  The film stars Richard Berry, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Jean-François Balmer, Fanny Bastien and Nathalie Courval.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


One night, Lyza sees her brother, the reporter Max Forestier, killed and narrowly escapes death herself at the hands of an unknown assailant.  She enlists the support of a sports journalist, Jean-Pierre Mougin, who works for the same agency as her brother.  Mougin quickly drops his scepticism when he himself becomes the target of a brutal assassin and uncovers a plot by neo-Nazi thugs to instigate a truly horrific racist terrorist attack.  The question is: will he live long enough to tell the tale…?

Sexy French film star Richard Berry is on top form in this full-bodied political thriller, the kind of a film that was enormously popular in France in the late ’70s and early ’80s.  Although the plot is a tad absurd and strewn with well-worn clichés, the film boasts some pretty respectable production values – solid performances from its lead actors (Berry is particularly good here), memorable action stunts, and some moody night-time photography that evokes the tension and menace of classic film noir.  Whilst it does little to stimulate the intellect, Urgence is a tense, compelling, grittier than average policier, which is surprisingly entertaining and presages the dark post-noir thrillers of the 1990s.


© James Travers 2006

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