Fresh Bait (1995)
"L'appât" (original title)

Three adolescents, a girl who serves as the priming and two boys, kill two men cold blooded who were known by the girl only for to steal the money of them. With the money the three want to ... See full summary »

Director:

Bertrand Tavernier

Writers:

Morgan Sportes (novel), Bertrand Tavernier,

Stars:

Marie Gillain, Olivier Sitruk, Bruno Putzulu

3 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Marie Gillain	...	Nathalie
Olivier Sitruk	...	Eric
Bruno Putzulu	...	Bruno
Richard Berry	...	Alain
Philippe Duclos	...	Antoine
Marie Ravel	...	Karine
Clotilde Courau	...	Patricia
Jean-Louis Richard	...	Innkeeper
Christophe Odent	...	Laurent
Jean-Paul Comart	...	Michel
Philippe Héliès	...	Pierre
Jacky Nercessian	...	M. Tapiro (Nathalie's boss)
Alain Sarde	...	Philippe
Daniel Russo	...	Jean-Pierre
Philippe Torreton	...	Chief cop

Storyline

Three adolescents, a girl who serves as the priming and two boys, kill two men cold blooded who were known by the girl only for to steal the money of them. With the money the three want to open a shop for clothing in the United States. But their dream turns out to be more difficult to realize than the assassination.

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Plot Keywords:

money | sexuality | friendship | greed | murder | 

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Taglines:

Ils sont jeunes. Ils veulent reussir vite. Elle est...

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

8 March 1995 (France)

Also Known As:

Fresh Bait

Box Office

Gross:

$40,617 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

France 2 Cinéma, Hachette Première, Little Bear

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This movie is based on true events. The real characters are still in prison.

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Connections

References Philadelphia Experiment II (1993)

User Reviews

A modern, ambiguous "anti-thriller"

Maybe the title of the movie misled some viewers, Tavernier's "Bait" is not a common "thriller". The plot is indeed quite loose, the relationships between the characters are not a pretext for great drama, and you will hear no loud orchestral music in the climax (because there is no climax). Yet the emotion is here, thanks to the charm and subtle portraying of "Nathalie" by Marie Gilain (the rest of the cast is very good too). The great strong point of the movie is to smash every cliché about violence in modern society. Tavernier does a kind of "movie about movie viewers" (the youngsters watch a De Palma's "Scarface" video over and over) and in the French reality, violence is not exciting, not graphic, not choreographic, only real... The characters are even able to close their eyes on their own violence very efficiently as if nothing really happened while it's possible to avoid it's consequences... This kind of "modern" approach is really hard to achieve unless the directing is really good, and many bad directors tend to use the same tricks, such as hand held camera, etc... some other can't help emphasizing too much on the darkest aspects of the human nature, but here, on the contrary, there's a positive energy that flows from the characters (which makes the meaning so ambiguous and interesting) and as for the directing, the free but controlled camera moves and the general pace of the movie, gives it an elegant style which serves the script.