Film Review
Le Guetteur (a.k.a.
The Lookout) marks the French
feature debut of Michele Placido, a well-known Italian film actor and
director who found international acclaim with his stylish crime-drama
Romanzo criminale (2005). Any
film that boasts the combined talents of Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu
Kassovitz and Olivier Gourmet, three of French cinema's most bankable
stars, can hardly fail to attract our attention, and with Placido in
the driving seat you'd think this would be a sure-fire hit.
Whilst the film has its moments (it starts well and ends well), overall
it just doesn't make the grade, hampered as it is by a third-rate
screenplay and a general lack of focus. Instead of coming
up with an original scenario, screenwriters Cédric Melon and
Denis Brusseaux were content merely to cobble together several
second-hand story ideas, and it is therefore hardly surprising that the
end result looks like a badly spliced together compilation of numerous
French and American thrillers of the past four decades.
Jean-Pierre Melville should have been given the main writing credit,
given that his films are the ones that are most obviously pillaged for
ideas - it is not by accident that Daniel Auteuil's character has the
same name as the lead cop in Melville's
Le
Cercle rouge.
To its credit,
Le Guetteur
does at least manage to get off to a promising start. From the
opening scene, in which a rough-round-the-edges cop (Daniel Auteuil)
harangues his resolutely uncooperative prisoner (Mathieu Kassovitz), we
have a shrewd idea what the film is meant to be about - a personal
contest between two iron-willed individuals who, despite being on
opposite sides of the law, have much in common. What follows this
appetising taster is a dramatic flashback which plunge us into the
film's most spectacular set piece sequence, a tense, extremely well
choreographed action shoot-out which shows Placido at his best.
The trap is sprung. We are hooked. We cannot wait to see
what happens next. Then, like one of those infuriating
self-assembly wardrobes (the ones which come with instructions which
appear to have been written by a dyslexic Martian), it all suddenly falls apart
for no apparent reason.
It looks as if Placido managed to blow most of the film's budget in its
first big action scene, for what ensues is far less attention grabbing
- a long and tortuous manhunt that mines just about every cliché
known to the thriller genre. Clearly, the screenwriters had
already grown tired of the Auteuil-Kassovitz plot strand by this stage
and decided to head off down a few more blind alleys, just for their
own amusement. As the plot lurches from one Jean-Pierre Melville
film to another, like a rat desperately seeking shelter in a storm, we
are distracted by a subplot involving a shady doctor (Gourmet) whose
hobbies including betraying his friends and killing people, and another
pointless digression about a pregnant woman which appears to have been
stolen from your favourite soap opera. As disheartening as this
may sound, it isn't until the unlikely relationship between the three
main characters is established that the film completely loses all
credibility and causes you to abandon all faith in the sacred art of
screenwriting. Admittedly, the film does just about manage to
claw back some of its dignity in its concluding showdown, an
ultra-violent homage to the classic western, but by this stage you're
either past caring or else already seeking some desperately needed
therapy at the nearest alcohol retail establishment.
There is only so much flagrant plagiarism a body can take in one sitting.
The most frustrating thing about
Le
Guetteur is that it has so much potential - how could it not,
with such a well-stocked pool of creative talent to drawn on? As
the disenchanted cop and lone warrior living by his own code (Clint
Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Man With No Name respectively), Daniel Auteuil and
Mathieu Kassovitz are well-cast and perfectly matched - both are
extremely charismatic actors with a penchant for playing complex,
ambiguous characters who can readily engage an audience's
sympathy. If only the writers had taken the obvious course and
focussed exclusively on the relationship between Auteuil and
Kassovitz's characters, if only they had jettisoned the endless
digressions stuffed with clichés and half-developed characters,
then this might have been a film worth watching. Instead of a
taut character-based thriller, what we are subjected to is a clumsily
put together potpourri of over-worn ideas which looks as if it may have
been intended for an audience suffering from a severe case of attention
deficit disorder. If you find yourself in the position of having
to sit through this muddled and scarily pretentious film, just make sure you
have plenty of cranberry sauce with you.
Le Guetteur looks like being the
most indigestible French turkey of the year.
© James Travers 2012
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Parisian police chief Mattei has set up an ambush to capture a
notorious gang of bank robbers. Just as the operation looks as if
it might succeed, a lone sniper appears from nowhere and systematically
slaughters most of Mattei's team. In the confusion, the crooks
manage to escape, but their progress is hindered by the fact that one
of them has sustained a serious injury. Galvanised more by
personal revenge than by professional duty, Mattei immediately
organises a large-scale manhunt, determined to bring the robbers and
their sniper accomplice to justice, whatever it costs...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.