Barracuda (1997)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Philippe Haïm

Writers:

Philippe Haïm (writer)
Marie Krüger (writer)

Release Date:

29 October 1997 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A mad but cunning old man imprisons a young man in his apartment to be his friend. |

Plot Keywords:

Apartment | Prisoner | Female Nudity | Shirtless Male Bondage

Cast

Jean Rochefort	...	Monsieur Clément
Guillaume Canet	...	Luc
Claire Keim	...	Margot
Michel Scourneau	...	Hallucination Clément
Rose Thiéry	...	Concierge
Cécile Cotte	...	Voisine repasseuse
Philippe Lefebvre	...	Pierre
Karine Nuris	...	Caroline
Marc-André Brunet	...	Le chef des pompiers
Franck Stepler	...	L'animateur télé
Mariame Kadi	...	La chanteuse
Tonio Descanvelle	...	Employé EDF
Katia Schuchman	...	La voisine du rez-de-chaussée
Daniel Guthmann	...	Pompier
Jochen Müller	...	Pompier

Also Known As:

Barracuda - Vorsicht Nachbar! (Germany)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

France | Germany | Belgium

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Germany:16

Company:

Canal+

Luc's nightmarish experience grabs you from the start.

This is a film that begins so quietly one might be tempted to discard it. But, hang on for a few more minutes and you'll be rewarded by an intriguing and exciting story of a young man caught up in the fantasies of a psychopath, an elderly man who lives alone with a plastic replica of his deceased wife. It's a well-acted piece that holds you in its grip right to the end. It's almost a duologue with Luc (Gillaume Canet) and Clement (JEAN Rochefort) playing a series of "cat and mouse" scenes. All the other players have bit parts. Chained first to a bathroom washbasin and then to a steel post in his "own" room, Luc is at the mercy of fiendish Clement, a strange man with a troubled mind and one who likes to dance like Fred Astaire. Luc of course is constantly struggling to escape and he uses every ruse under the sun including a psychological approach. The director in quite a few scenes uses an interesting technique which is new to me. First we see the outcome of a situation played as Luc imagines it could be and then the script cuts to the real situation which is often frustrating and hopeless with no possible solution. Be warned some of the scenes are violent. The old man is pretty active with a fire extinguisher as a lethal weapon and equally at ease with a hyperdermic. Whether you believe the story or not, I can tell you it seems quite possible as one gets caught up in the action. If there's a message in the film, it's this: Never accept dinner appointments from strangers!