Film Review
Once a gangster, always a gangster - that is the glib aphorism that
director Olivier Marchal seeks to unpick in his latest gangster
thriller, a welcome return to form after his relatively lacklustre 2008
film
MR 73. Between
these two cinematic excursions, Marchal took time out to direct a prime
time French thriller TV series,
Braquo,
which, judging by the reaction it has garnered in France, augurs well
for a very successful career in television. Watching
Les Lyonnais, Marchal's latest
foray into gangland escapism, it is easy to see that the film would
have worked much better as a television series. The constraints
of cinema are cruel and unforgiving, and the epic story that Marchal so
evidently wants to tell is just too big and complex for a single
mainstream feature film.
It is telling that the director had originally conceived
Les Lyonnais as a two-part film, in
a similar vein to Jean-François Richet's
Mesrine (2008), the first part
relating the gangster protagonists' criminal past, the second part
dealing with their traumatic (delayed retribution) present. When
this proved to be infeasible, Marchal opted to weave the two storylines
into a single film, resorting to the old device of the sepia-tinted
flashback. The inevitable consequence of this brutal story
compression and manic hopping between past and present is that the film
lacks coherence and struggles to hold our attention. It takes a
while for the principal characters to establish themselves and,
unavoidably, Marchal is compelled to fall back on shorthand
(well-worn clichés and dull archetypes) that makes the film feel
dated and shallow. As an extended TV series, Marchal would have
had the time and the freedom to paint a richer and more nuanced saga,
with well-drawn characters explored in sufficient depth for us to fully
engage with them. By cramming all this into one film, he has had
to compromise so much that you wonder why he bothered. Imagine
what we'd have got if Francis Ford Coppola had been minded to stuff
The Godfather Parts I, II and
III into a single 100 minute film
- it would be something like this.
Les Lyonnais has the added
problem that it is too easily compared with the generally well-regarded
Mesrine diptych. Both
films concern themselves with notorious gangsters who were active in
the 1970s, hirsute bank-robbers whose criminal exploits (which
surprisingly involved next to no blood-shedding) were so widely
reported in the media that they became overnight celebrities. For his
film, Marchal chose to depart from reality rather than attempt a
broadly accurate account of his protagonists' underworld adventures,
only loosely basing his film on the autobiography of reformed gangster
Edmond Vidal. (The character Serge Suttel never existed in real
life - he is actually an amalgam of three of Vidal's gangster
associates.) Marchal's poetic licence provides a too easy route
by which he can humanise his protagonists and you can't help thinking
that the film would have had more power if it had stuck closer to the
facts, instead of bending the truth for dramatic effect and building to
a denouement that is so contrived it is almost laughable.
Whilst
Les Lyonnais matches
Mesrine in its pace, authentical
period detail and spectacular action sequences, it falls somewhat short
of that film's sustained visual artistry and is much weaker on the
characterisation front. What it does have going for it are some
exceptional performances from its lead actors.
Gérard Lanvin is a superb casting choice for the part of Vidal
and gives what is possibly the most sympathetic and convincing gangster
portrayal since Lino Ventura (originally the part was slated for Alain
Delon, who would probably have been far less effective in the
role). Tchéky Karyo is just as impressive as Vidal's less
scrupulous partner in crime - the grimly psychotic, Mephistophelean
nature of his character making an effective contrast with Lanvin's more
humane portrayal of a man who so desperately wants to turn over a new
leaf but cannot. It is largely through the quality of the acting
that
Les Lyonnais surpasses
Marchal's previous gangster films
Gangsters (2002) and
MR 73 (2008), but some complacency
in its mise-en-scène and screenwriting prevents it from having
quite the impact of
36 Quai des Orfèvres (2004),
the director's best film to date.
© James Travers 2012
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Next Olivier Marchal film:
Gangsters (2002)
Film Synopsis
From his boyhood, a miserable time in a gypsy camp, Edmond Vidal has
always had a sense of family loyalty and he remains proud of his humble
origins. This explains why he is still devotedly attached to his
childhood friend Serge Suttel, with whom he experienced his first taste
of crime and prison life. It was with Serge that Edmond formed
one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the early 1970s. Now
in his late fifties, Edmond tries to forget this period of his
life. Happily married with children and grandchildren, he is a
reformed character. The same cannot be said of Serge, who shares
none of his former friend's regret for his life of crime...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.