Film Review
HS (Hors Service) starts out
as a moderately amusing send up of Quentin Tarantino's gore-filled
gangster films (unsubtle references to
Reservoir
Dogs (1992) and
Pulp Fiction (1994) crop up in
every other scene) but soon runs out of steam as the silliness of its
premise and dearth of original ideas become apparent. Black
comedy is the hardest of arts to master and is not something that has
traditionally appealed to either French filmmakers or French cinema
audiences. Director Jean-Paul Lilienfeld makes a valiant attempt
to extract humour from the world of the hired assassin, but, too in awe
of Tarantino and his ilk, he ends up turning out a film that is a fair
pastiche but not particularly funny.
The appeal of
HS, if it has
any at all, stems entirely from the unlikely ensemble that makes up the
gang of
Reservoir Dogs-like
killers. Dieudonné, François Berléand,
Lambert Wilson, Loránt Deutsch and Stéphan
Guérin-Tillié make such a weird bunch that anything is
possible, and it is the attempts by these very capable actors to play
against the gangster stereotypes that provides most of the film's
entertainment value. Wilson is such a cool dude he looks as if he could freeze
the Atlantic ocean with one wiggle of his eyebrows; Berléand is
your everyday homicidal paranoiac; and Deutsch is a Tamagochi addict
who likes to combine DIY and torture.
Even if his character is scarcely credible (a man who has a Damascene
conversion after beating his wife senseless), the popular comedian
Dieudonné has the most impact and could easily pass as a pukka
actor in this, his first leading film role. (Within a few years of appearing
in this film, Dieudonné's popularity would take a
massive nosedive when he aligned
himself with extreme right wing politics, effectively putting the
breaks on his busy film and television career.) After the comparative
failure of
HS, Jean-Paul
Lilienfeld amply redeemed himself with his next film, the wonderfully
off-beat
La Journée de la jupe
(2008).
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Marchand is happy with his life, until the day his wife discovers he is
a professional hitman and not, as he claims to be, a shoe
salesman. A violent domestic row ends with Marchand punching his
wife into a coma, an act he soon bitterly regrets. Unable to
execute his next assignment, Marchand decides to turn over a new leaf,
believing that by doing so his wife will come out of her coma.
Naturally, this is not to the liking of the other four members of his
gang - Francis, Louis, Victor and M'sieur - who decide to terminate
their association with Marchand in a suitably bloody manner...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.