A Crime (2006)

Vincent's life is on hold until he finds his wife's killer. Alice, his neighbor, is convinced she can make him happy. She decides to invent a culprit, so that Vincent can find revenge and leave the past behind. But there is no ideal culprit and no perfect crime...

Director:

Manuel Pradal

Writers:

Tonino Benacquista (scenario), Manuel Pradal (scenario)

Stars:

Harvey Keitel, Emmanuelle Béart, Norman Reedus

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Harvey Keitel	...	Roger Culkin
Emmanuelle Béart	...	Alice Parker
Norman Reedus	...	Vincent Harris
Joe Grifasi	...	Bill
Lily Rabe	...	Sophie
Kim Director	...	Ashley
Brian Tarantina	...	Joe
Patrick Collins	...	Ben
Chuck Cooper	...	Will
Clem Cheung	...	Li Huang
Jonathan Lam	...	Baby-Face
Ted Koch	...	Scott
Natalie Caron	...	Jenny
Ben Wang	...	Chinese man
Stephen Payne	...	Mark

Storyline

While returning home after fixing the lights of a billboard, the worker Vincent Harris passes by a taxi with a damage door panel. When Vincent arrives home, he finds his wife murdered on the floor of the living room. He claims that the driver was wearing a red jacket and a ring with a large stone. Three years later, he lives in Brooklyn but is still chasing the killer of his wife. His dysfunctional neighbor Alice Parker has a crush on him, but Vincent is haunted by the ghosts of his past. When Alice meets the cab driver Roger Culkin out of the blue, she seduces him, damages his taxi and gives a red jacked and a ring to him. Then she forces him to meet Vincent, inventing a culprit to release Vincent from his past and stay with her.

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Plot Keywords:

taxi | beach | broken mirror | murder | dog | 

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Genres:

Crime | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexual content, language and some violence

Details

Country:

France USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 October 2006 (France)

Also Known As:

A Crime - Späte Rache

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$7,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

ARP Sélection, Alice Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min 110 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

Alice open Vincent's apartment door with a key but a closer shot shows, when the door closes, that the lock uses a magnetic card like in hotels.

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Connections

Referenced in JCVD (2008)

User Reviews

Intriguing

Vincent (Norman Reedus) is still suffering the loss of his wife killed three years ago by some psychopath taxi driver. He can't move with his life so his neighbor (Emmanuelle Béart) who has a crush on him tries to help him by trying to find this killer. Easy? Maybe. So she picks a random taxi driver (Harvey Keitel) and starts to get involved with these strange guy and she's gonna invent that this guy is really the killer of Vincent's wife. And then...

The story behind the movie "A Crime" is one of those intriguing stories where the next movement, the next step is always awaited. There are many surprises, not in that clichéd sense of plot twists, but just in the way that you can't see the obvious, it doesn't exist here. A quiet and slow paced story where the development of the characters and their actions is more important than to really know if they're gonna find the killer or what's gonna happen with Roger the taxi driver. But this is not a perfect screenplay, there's few things wrong it (the beginning was way too fast, in one moment Vincent see his wife dead and then the movie leaps three years later; and his first moments with his neighbor are quite strange, not well explained).

But besides that the movie floats very well and leaves the viewer wanting more of it. "A Crime" runs about 100 minutes but I think that it could be more longer specially in terms of characters development (mostly Vincent), showing the previous life of the main characters and things like that because these characters are presented and we're feel like "Can we like these characters? What's their reason behind their actions"? It misses much.

The performances are good, most notably Harvey Keitel (How come this guy gets incredible roles where he has to perform erotic scenes at the age of 60's? Things that even younger actors don't do frequently and I'm even comparing him with his young co-star Reedus who only has one scene with Béart and it's not even close of Keitel's seductive scenes with Béart). Béart was quite convincible in some parts as the desperate woman who wants to be with Vincent but instead she got trapped and got romantically and sexually involved with the taxi driver. I really liked Norman Reedus mysterious performance here but I wished he could have more scenes and a better character development. Most of his lines are whispered so I advise you to turn up the volume or you're probably miss what he's saying.

An Surprising, effective and great film to watch. 9/10