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DVD À bout portant
 Run time: 84 min Rating: 6.9 Genres: Action | Crime | Thriller Director: Fred Cavayé Writers: Fred Cavayé, Guillaume Lemans Stars: Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin |
| Storyline Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) is a nurse who saves the wrong guy — a thief (Roschdy Zem) whose henchmen take Samuel’s pregnant wife (Elena Anaya) hostage to force him to spring their boss from the hospital. A race through the subways and streets of Paris ensues, and the body count rises. Can Samuel evade the cops and the criminal underground and deliver his beloved to safety? Written by thewanger |
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| Plot Keywords: subway, criminal, pregnant wife, hostage, hospital | |
| Details: Country: France Release Date: 10 June 2011 (UK) |
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| Box Office Budget: $16,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $41,031 (USA) (29 July 2011) Gross: $706,937 (USA) (11 November 2011) |
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4 comments
this movie will keep your eyes open and sit on the edge of your chair once it starts. i often consider the good french action thrillers are the most creative and original, that's why Hollywood keeps copycatting and adapting from the french movies one after another once there are new good french thriller movies in the market. "the next three days(not a bad adaptation)" and "the tourist(just horrible!)" are the most recent examples adapted from the french originals.
this 'point blank' is a great thriller from beginning to the end. the chases from the hospital to the subway station and the chaos in the hospital and the police central are just exceptionally directed, edited, acted. i was sleepy before watching this movie, but once it started, the heavy eyelids just became light and wide open.
i didn't quite like the final scene. it seems a bit unnecessary but at the same time quite necessary, and that's a funny thought.
Outside of Hollywood, good and realistic action films can be successful without the Hollywood Big 3 of American action films…..CGI, car chases and boo-coo explosions. And, French films always deliver when mean, harsh, brutal and uncaring play the main roles. Great looking pregnant wife, Liam Neesom-resembling husband, despicable and brutal criminals uncaring about human values and life, and brutal dirty cops even less caring about human life made this one of my faves for the year so far.
Point Blank was a 100% serious film with great pacing and no smart-ass or comedic side tracks or poorly placed romance throw-ins as are so often stupidly done by Hollywood, plus it had plenty of the most terrifying and brutal behavior of human psychopathy to scare you silly. Other than a few timing errors where the director stayed with a few scenes longer than he should have for best effect, such as the one when the dirty cop was discovered, it was a well done seat-edge thriller to the end. And, yes, we all knew how it would end, as all those horrible experiences resulted in a typical ending…….good for the good guys and bad for the baddies.
How regular people in real life could ever have more or less normal lives after all that bloody terror and murder is beyond my understanding, but somehow these film characters seemed to be able to do it.
This is how you make an action-packed thriller. Swift, brutal and void of any kind of silly subplots that give too much time to words when the characters should just be racing for their lives. They quickly establish the characters in a clean and effective way and then shock you by going right into the action. With a very nice 80 minute runtime the film breezes by without dragging for a moment and you really just get caught up in the exciting chaos of it all. There's definitely no reinventing the wheel here, but it stands up with Taken and Running Scared as one of the best action films to come out this past decade. It was exactly what I wanted.
There were some moments that really made me sit up in my chair just by how much of a gut punch they were; some things I definitely didn't see coming. Gilles Lellouche is a great leading man, capable of portraying both the everyman and the action star qualities of his character while still being completely believable when he has to portray the dramatic moments to keep you on his side and understanding of what he is fighting for. It's stylish as hell and is seriously just pushing it's foot to pavement for the entire running time. This is a real crowd-pleaser.
French cinema is well known to the audience, especially to those tending to Art film. Besides French film influence which is the reference in the field, France is also very well known as a land of the Crime genre. I am myself great fan of their Film Noir and New Wave and I am totally crazy about their crime (gangster) movies from earlier periods and contemporary as well.
French crime movies did not loose its charm even today, and almost every year there are few great titles. It comes to my mind modern director like it is Olivier Marchal which movies I like very much, but there are respectable list of other names, both directors and actors.
Point Blank movie did not disappoint, and it were a pleasure to watch it. Even the name reminds me on classic US crime movie with Lee Marvin, but it have nothing similar with it. The plot of Point Blank is good, and somehow original, even it is not hard to predicts the end, which is usual for most movie.
This is not pure crime movie, I would add that there is a bit of thriller smell in it. The actors did a good job, especially well known actor Roschdy Zem which can be seen in most of the crime movies. I am not familiar with director Fred Cavaye, but he did a good job here, and he offer us fine work in tradition of French crime cinema.
For those looking for typical Hollywood action pack, maybe it is better to look at something else, but for those that like classic action crime European movie, it is more than recommended.