The Crimson Rivers

The Crimson Rivers

I'm a big fan of the genre (and "Seven" is still one of my 10 favorite films of all time), but "The Crimson Rivers" just didn't cut it. It is undeniably directed with enough skill and confidence to rival any Hollywood blockbuster, it is filmed on wonderful locations and it has great performances by both leading stars. But the pace is slow and the plot is muddled. Supposedly the DVD "making-of" documentary clarifies matters somewhat (and I plan to watch it right now)....but still, that should never be the only way you could interpret a movie. (**)

To start with I'm a big fan of French movies, a lot less pretentious than Hollywood is in the main. They seem to me to be more English than the likes of Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This film brings together two strong actors (Jean Reno, Le Jaguar and Leon and Vincent Cassel, Brotherhood of the Wolf)in a decent plot. Editing is good and don't be too upset by the opening scene that's as in your face as it gets. It whizzes along nicely and is set in a pretty part of France. Watch it, enjoy it oh and watch the Taxi series too with Sami Naceri!

(spoilers) I rented this film because it has two of my favorite French actors in it, the lovely Vincent Cassel and Jean Reno. It started out in a very interesting way-a body is found up on a mountain in a horribly mutilated state.body is that of a librarian/professor at a nearby exclusive college in the French Alps. Reno's character is a hotshot cop from Paris who is sent to investigate the body. So far, so good. But this film quickly degenerates into a morass of trite dialogue, puzzling 'clues' and stupid fight scenes. I had the so-called mystery figured out in about twenty minutes, what there was of it. The director dragged this film out for a long time on a very minor and quite cheesy plot. It was painful to watch two such talented actors as Reno and Cassel wander through this trite film with absolutely nothing to do but spout hackneyed lines and, in the case of Reno, tremble and fairly p**s himself every time his character came near a dog. Sad, really. This movie is a below average thriller. The plot is a head scratcher. There were so many loose ends that I think I could have knit myself a sweater from them. And the demon twins at the end were just laughable. That last fight between Cassel and the 'crazy' twin resembled the fight scene at the end of the really bad and cheesy Canadian film The Final Sacrifice. I was sorely disappointed in this film.

!!!!! SPOILERS !!!!! Before anyone sends me a message pointing out that CRIMSON RIVERS is in fact a French thriller let me just say I know , I think it was the fact that everyone was speaking French that convinced me of this . When I said " A Hollywood thriller " I meant that I've seen too many of these types of movies being churned out by American studios since the early 1990s and I've no idea why the legendary French film industry would want to follow suit and if you cast Robert DeNiro and Josh Hartnett in the lead roles and set it in Montana it'd still be the same film . Come to think of it wasn't this made in the mid 1990s with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt ? For a French film this lacks a Gallic identity People are being found dead in a French rural town with their bodies slashed , their hands chopped off and their eyeballs removed and it's up to Inspector Pierre Niemens to solve the murders while on the other side of town Sgt Max Kerkeiran is investigating the desecration of a young girl's tomb . Soon it becomes clear that the two cases are linked but what really lets the story down is the misconception involving eugenics which isn't in fact a uniquely Nazi ideal . Nazis also believed in state ownership so does that mean someone on the centre left who believes public transport should be owned by the government is in a fact a Nazi ? Aldos Huxley and HG Wells both believed in the benefit of eugenics but they were very much on the political left so characters gasping " They're Nazis " seems somewhat strange and considering the political subtext is something of red herring only introduced so Max can get involved in a quite laughable fight scene with some neo-fascists .The eugenics sub plot seems somewhat tenuous . It should also be said that the idea of two intellectuals breeding more intellectuals is somewhat silly . There's no evidence in the real world that intellect is in anyway down to genetics CRIMSON RIVERS is an okay film and I guess the producers were more interested in making a movie that would sell abroad hence the rather over familiar plot and techniques in story telling but certainly both Reno and Cassell will both be making better French movies in the future

French cinema, not infrequently, offers us some pearls. This is one more. A solid, well-made thriller with action and suspense and two excellent actors in the lead roles. What disillusioned me a little was the ending, which falls into an absurd cliché. The script is based on an apparent coincidence: two police officers investigating isolated cases end up realizing that they will have to collaborate to solve a case that ultimately unites them: a wave of macabre and mysterious murders, all around an ancient and prestigious university, isolated in the middle of the French Alps. Much of the quality of the film comes from the excellent performance of Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel, two of the most international and prestigious French actors today. The former gave life to a hard-working, unrelenting professional detective, while the other was able to perfectly embody an unconventional, young, untimely cop. The other actors, for me, were a group of illustrious strangers who only gave support to these two professionals, but it is to be noted that everyone did well what they had to do. The film made good use of the icy landscapes of the Alps, as well as the whole winter environment. The soundtrack is very good and adds suspense at the right times, as well as sound, visual and special effects. It's not a CGI show, though. It is based entirely on the weight of the two main actors, on the ability of both to interpret well, and on the story told. As I mentioned initially, the film is perfect until very near the end, when it tries to surprise us with a turnaround that, for me, made no sense and prejudiced the plot. The climax, in the middle of a glacier, is absolutely cliché and boring, and ends up resorting to the ragged solution of the bad twin vs. Nice twin. Absurd. It would have been better to solve the movie otherwise, he truly deserved it. Anyway, as this happens even in the final part, the film is still one of those I like to see.

THE CRIMSON RIVERS is one of the most over-directed, over-the-top, over-everything mess I've ever seen come out of France. There's nothing worse than a French production trying to out-do films made in Hollywood and CR is a perfect example of such a wannabe horror/action/buddy flick. I almost stopped it halfway through because I knew it wouldn't amount to anything but French guys trying to show-off. The film starts off promisingly, like some sort of expansive horror film, but it quickly shifts genres, from horror to action to x-files type to buddy flick, that in the end, CR is all of it and also none of it. It's so full of clichés that at one point I thought the whole thing was a comedy. The painful dialogue and those silent pauses, with fades outs and fades ins just at the right expositionary moments, made me groan. I thought only films made in Hollywood used this hackneyed technique. The chase scene, with Vincent Cassel running after the killer, is so over-directed and over-done that it's almost a thing of beauty. The climax on top of the mountain, with the stupid revelation about the killer(s) with Cassel and Reno playing "buddies" like Nolte and Murphy in 48 HRS, completely derailed what little credibility the film had by then. It's difficult to believe that the director of THE CRIMSON RIVERS also directed GOTHIKA, which though had its share of problems, doesn't even come close to the awfulness of this overbaked, confused film.

The novel by Jean-Cristophe Grangè on which this film is based is simply one of the best thrillers ever written,in the same league as The Silence of the Lambs and Misery,and with the help of writer/director Mathieu Kassovitz(who was also supposed to be one of the actors)the author has successfully brought his masterpiece to the screen. From the very beginning,thanks to the location and Bruno Coulais'unsettling score,we realize French people can make good horror thrillers: Pierre Niemans(Jean Reno) is in Grenoble to solve a couple of weird and brutal murders,while Max Kerkerian(Vincent Cassel)investigates a damaged tomb somewhere else. Soon they discover the two cases are connected,and the two men have to run against the clock in order to uncover the awful truth about what's been going on in the local university for years. The book has been simplified(the first chapter is entirely missing,as well as some of the details about Cassel's case),but the movie manages to be very interesting,and the chemistry between Reno and Cassel is great. Special praise for Dominique Sanda,her creepy cameo being the film's best sequence(Sissy Spacek appears in a similar scene in The Ring 2). Only defect:why did they make the sequel?

So hands up, who knows which babies were swapped, when, where and why, who got run down by the lorry, why the mother went to live in a convent, and just what happened to the 'bad' twin once her death had been faked? Oh, and can anybody explain why none of this was explained. Thankfully, all of the above has become clear to me now, but only after sifting through the IMDb message boards for this film. Turns out, the film's star Vincent Cassel doesn't have a clue either. It also turns out that "everything is revealed" on the DVD making-of. Great. But it's a real shame though, because they genuinely had a tense thriller on their hands before it descended into Nazi nonsense. The atmosphere was simmering for the opening hour or so, and using the two detective's investigations as two separate narrative strands was some really intelligent film-making. But then the plot gets ridiculous and unclear, and when you do eventually realise the extent of the convoluted plot, you can understand why they didn't put any explanations of it in. It's a load of nonsense. P.S. I've decided not to mention the 3 minutes of Jet Li theatrics somewhere in the middle of this film. I thought it would save embarrassment for all concerned were I to merely brush over it.

"The Crimson Rivers" tells of two French detectives on converging investigative paths leading to the "who" in whodunit as they leapfrog from one tense moment to the next in this good but not great macabre and sometimes gruesome serial killer mystery. What this flick lacks in story it more than makes up for in artistry and verve as it carves itself out of hauntingly beautiful vistas, superb cinematography, great sound and score, and, perhaps best of all for English speakers, excellent dubbed translations. Well worth the time for those with an eye for artistry in film and a taste for dark thrillers.