This has everything you want in a thriller and nothing more. It’s a classic wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time story. There’s a nurse’s aide in Paris (Gilles Lellouche). He’s a nice guy. His wife is pregnant. That’s all you need to know, and all the story tells us about him. No sappy drama here. There’s another guy (Roschdy Zem), a criminal, who winds up, sort of, in the same mess as our nice nurse’s aide. And then there’s some other cops and criminals, but it’s awhile before we learn who the good guys and who the bad guys are. (I say “guys,” but the cops are male and female.) Anyway, this movie doesn’t even last an hour and a half, but excepting a few minutes at the start and a few at the end, it never lets up. You get enough plot to propel the story—through the streets, metro stations, etc., of Paris—but not so much it becomes convoluted or ridiculous.
Director and cowriter Fred Cavayé previously made a movie called Anything for Her that was remade as The Next Three Days with Russell Crowe. As Hollywood thrillers increasingly rely on spectacle and superheroics, the slightly lower budgets of television (think 24) and overseas allow the story to shine. You like that, you’ll like this.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 and reviewed 8/14/11
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