Un ange (2001)
Directed by Miguel Courtois

Film Review

Two years was how long it took the producer of Un ange to find a distributor after it had been made... and it's not hard to see why.  For his second feature, director Miguel Courtois was keen to bring a new slant to a popular genre in French cinema, the crime-thriller.  Unfortunately, he manages to get it almost completely wrong.  The plot of this supposedly upgraded policier is unbelievably hackneyed, to the extent that it is very nearly a tedious montage of tired clichés which would have looked dated even in the 1970s.  Courtois's heavy-handed attempts at originality are pretty well limited to the film's visual style, which wouldn't have been so bad if he had been a little more restrained.  What we get is an almost continuous barrage of overly athletic camera movement (every kind of pan and zoom you can imagine) which, for the most part, serves merely to distract the spectactor and heighten the sense of nausea.  On the plus side, the film has a strong cast, but since the characterisation is so weak and the plot so lacking in credibility, this ends up feeling like an expensive icing on a pretty indigestible gâteau.

Film Synopsis

As she walks out of prison, Léa's only thought is to make a fresh start in life, far from the father who has no interest in her and the brother, Samy, whose criminal exploits got her arrested and sent away.  Most of all, she intends staying clear of Zach, the small-time hoodlum she once loved, and his odious gang.  Léa's hopes for a new life are torn apart when Samy is shot dead by a policeman.

As she cradles her dying brother in her arms she thinks only of seeking revenge.  The object of her loathing is Koskas, a cop who is struggling to bring up a nine-month-old baby and who has a habit of getting into trouble with his superiors.  He was panicked into shooting Samy whilst pursuing him for drugs trafficking.  Léa intends to get even with the cop by kidnapping his precious offspring...