Le Chant du loup (2019)
Directed by Antonin Baudry

Film Review

Since Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981) and John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October (1990), several less memorable submarine-based blockbusters have been unleashed on the viewing public, the latest offering being a big-budget action extravaganza conceived and executed by a former French diplomat, Antonin Baudry.  Le Chant du loup (The Wolf's Call) is a pretty slavish attempt at imitating its American predecessors, a souped-up Cold War thriller that makes effective use of its twenty million dollar budget but ends up blowing its own credibility out of the water with a plot that is about as clichéd and contrived as it is possible for a mainstream entertainment of this kind to be.

Baudry's first artistic success was a graphic novel he penned in 2010 under the name Abel Lanzac, Quai d'Orsay.  This was subsequently turned into a film comedy of the same title in 2013, directed Bertrand Tavernier and co-scripted by Baudry.  With a subject that is somewhat outside of his sphere of experience, Baudry resorts to ludicrous flights of fancy and pinching ideas from other films, with the result that Le Chant du loup ends up looking like a best bits compilation of every similar marine-based action film before it.

Which is not to say it is a bad film.  Derivative it may be, but in the directing seat Baudry handles it with considerable skill and what he lacks in originality he more than makes up for in gusto.  Equipped with a principal cast of no small pedigree -  François Civil, Omar Sy, Mathieu Kassovitz, Reda Kateb - Le Chant du loup has enough acting muscle to make up for the shallow and formulaic screenplay which tends to overlook little things like character depth and human motivation in its pursuit of cheap thrills.  The performances are commendable, although the characters are less convincing than might have been the case had Baudry made the effort to inject a little more psychology into his screenplay.

Attempts to introduce some real human interest into the plot-heavy intrigue - such as a romantic subplot - are too half-hearted and mechanical to ring true.  And when the film gets into its second half the plot contrivances completely run away with themselves, with every hackneyed device known to man being called into service to convince us that the future of the world hangs in the balance as our heroes get caught up in a manic race against time.  The only thing that Baudry overlooked was a power-mad villain of the Fu Manchu variety taunting the civilised world with his latest dastardly plan for world domination.

Film Synopsis

Aboard a fully armed French nuclear submarine, a young sonar technician, Chanteraide, plays a vital role detecting unfamiliar sounds with his highly sensitive ears.  He is reputed to be infallible but in the course of a dangerous operation in the Middle East he makes a serious error which puts the entire crew of his vessel in peril.  On his return to base, he resolves to uncover the reason for his mistake and regain the confidence of his superiors.  But in doing so, Chanteraide merely gets himself into deeper water.  With Russia heading inexorably towards conflict with Europe, the stakes are higher than ever before as the sonar technician tries to redeem himself.  Time is fast running out - not just for Chanteraide, but for the entire human race...