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Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien (2000)
The whole movie gets nowhere, hesitating in between the cheap thriller and the French comedy
Well, well, well... It had been a long time I had not been so bored in a theatre. Knowing it had been quite a hit in France I thought I would enjoy seeing it... What a disappointment ! The film starts OK, interesting view on a family holiday... That raised quite a lot of personal souvenirs... But then as soon as Michel meets Harry the situation becomes slightly irrealistic... Well why not after all... But well things just don't improve... The whole movie hesitates in between the cheap thriller and the french comedy - in the style of the last few years - with its 'bons mots', its deal of exagerated cliches and sarcasms but gets nowhere. I don't know if the director meant to scare us (in which case it badly lacks of realism and all these 'funny' cliches are not very welcome...) or to makes us laugh (in which case he didn't go far enough... Lines may be funny, a few situations too but he then should have gone into a caricature of the thriller style to really make it funny and leave all these 'good lines' behind). I think he tried both at the same time and just failed. I read reviews mentioning about the suspense of the situation... I didn't see much of a trace of suspense... Everything is just so predictible. Everything is told you beforehand and in case you missed the point the music is here to remind you that something is going on... There is no mystery left and basically no surprise...
I got honestly bored and it was hard to stay the whole 2 hours of this film... Shame it is so long, it would have been quite a nice idea for a short film actually. Shame also to see Sergi Lopez in that, he who was so brilliant in Manuel Poirier's Western...
I'm sorry to be so harsh but due to my disappointment it's a 1.
Joan of Arc (1999)
I have always thought Besson would make good videoclips... But when it comes to a 3 hours one it's a bit too much...
I have always thought Besson would make good videoclips... But when it comes to a 3 hours one it's a bit too much... I left the theatre exhausted but not blasted... OK, this film is entertaining but what... It looks more like a attempt to make a historical epic than a renewal of the style... So many cliches (I expected Charles Ingalls to appear after the first scene when Jeanne as a kid is running through the fields...) that you don't know if Besson is taking his film seriously or not...
You actually don't know if he's taking Jeanne d'Arc seriously or not as she appears to be either this messenger of God or a complete lunatic, and wherever the answer is, the result is the same : she's the hell of a hysteric. And Milla Jovovivch is just perfect for crying rivers of tears and shouting around... Disapppointing performance which ruins all the ambiguity of the character... However beautiful she is, she is just not an actress.
Supporting cast is good, right, but so mechanical, Malkovich and Hoffman are type-cast and are performing with far to much ease to give intensity and credibility to their parts, they basically look bored. I have great respect for Faye Dunaway who was asked to do a remake of Verna Lisi's tremendous performance as Catherine de Medici in Queen Margot... But even with the same haircut (and a horrible make-up, this blue vein is awfully unrealistic) she doesn't get there... Anyway, I don't blame her for that... It's more the script that mistreats these court intrigues and make them more an easy and fast way (because the bloody film's almost 3 hours long already !) to get Jeanne burnt...
Fortunately, a few of the actors have fun here... I'm talking about Tcheky Karyo and Vincent Cassel who really enjoy being in a war movie... But here again, it's looks more like they're purely having fun as actors (not much as being their characters). Anyway, they didn't have much choice as their characters count so little in the whole thing...
The soundtrack is most irritating, I can't remember of a single fraction of a second when you don't get background music... and of the most un-original kind... Some scenes would be so much stronger if they were actually silent... But no, Mr Besson is probably afraid that the audience would fall asleep and gives a tedious rythm to his movie thanks to Eric Serra's heavy Carmina Burana-like and ridiculous electronic fantasy noises... I thought I'd turn deaf before the end of the whole thing...
Once again, Besson has sacrified a script that could have been interesting for the sake of style... He's feeding us with an awful lot of cliches and instead of renewing a genre, which is obviously his pretention, he's turning it into a rather boring farce in which actors are just doing what they're asked to do because they get so little freedom to actually perform.
Kleine Teun (1998)
you are witnessing the hilarious situation of a remote, pathetic couple to a tricky and scary menage a trois...
Those who've seen De Jurk are probably used to the style and v the kind of humor.
On the slow rhythm brought by the fresh early mornings on the (so flat) Dutch countryside, you are witnessing the hilarious situation of a remote, pathetic couple to a tricky and scary menage a trois... The actors are excellent and their scarce words take you to intrigue, laughter as well as disgust and horror. Warmerdam plays with his characters' fantaisies and perversities and in fact with the spectator's as he leaves so much to imagine...
An excellent cinema experience for a great movie !