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36 Quai Des Orfevres Director: Olivier Marchal Rated: MA15+ Palace Nova cinemas In the movie business, the old saying is that "there is nothing more bankable than star power". Of course, star power has its limitations: stars can't make a bad movie good. If a movie has an exceptional screenplay and direction, they are not going to launch it into the stratosphere. What stars can do however, is to elevate a good movie into one of quality with their charisma and class, particularly when the movie is a genre flick like '36 Quai Des Orfevres' and its stars are the two male icons of French cinema - Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu. The film's title takes its name from the address of police headquarters in Paris where an epic battle is about to erupt between Leo Vrinks (Auteuil) and Denis Klein (Depardieu) - heads of separate plain clothes squads - for the promotion they both desperately want. A gang of armed robbers is holding up bank vans and the squad head that catches them will almost certainly win the promotion. Neither candidate is a squeaky clean Elliot Ness. Vrinks' works within his own code of honour outside the system and is admired by his peers. However, he is close to his criminal informants and thus vulnerable to exploitation. Klein works within the confines of the system, but is ruthless and friendless. The rivalry is exacerbated by the fact that Vrinks is married to Klein's former love Camille (Valeria Golino). When a former informant of Vrinks commits an execution style murder in his presence and Klein finds out, the scene is set for an internecine fight to the death. The film does not cover any new thematic ground and relies on the sum of its technical parts and the performances to impress. The screenplay which is apparently to some extent based on actual events in the nineteen eighties is taut and mostly credible. Director Olivier Marchal shows he can match it with the best in Hollywood, although the comparisons with Michael Mann's 'Heat' are a little flattering. The camerawork in the action sequences is close and claustrophobic and the editing is sharp. Auteuil is a remarkable actor- the master of subtle underplaying. His face appears to be an expressionless mask, but there is a thin layer of quizzical animation that conveys the message with enhanced effect. Depardieu too is more subdued than usual, but still the perfect villain. There is little dialogue between the two characters in their scenes together, but the force of the actors' personalities fills the screen with their mutual venom. Marchal aesthetically surrounds his mature leads with a younger and attractive supporting cast, particularly Francis Renaud as Titi and Catherine Marchal as a new recruit with a conscience. It's ironic indeed that a film that borrows many of the elements of the Hollywood action thriller and incorporates them into the French idiom is (according to the rumour mill) going to be remade by Hollywood. If only the industrial sector was as conscious of recycling as Tinseltown.  |
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