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Polytechnique (2009)

 -  Crime | Drama | History  -  January 2010 (USA)
7.1
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Ratings: 7.1/10 from 2,231 users   Metascore: 61/100
Reviews: 19 user | 34 critic | 6 from Metacritic.com

A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.

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Title: Polytechnique (2009)

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Maxim Gaudette ...
The Killer
Sébastien Huberdeau ...
Jean-François
...
Valérie
Martin Watier ...
Jean-François (voice)
...
Stéphanie
Johanne-Marie Tremblay ...
Jean-François' Mother
Natalie Hamel-Roy ...
Jean-François' Mother (voice) (as Nathalie Hamel-Roy)
Pierre-Yves Cardinal ...
Éric
Pierre Leblanc ...
Mr. Martineau
Francesca Barcenas ...
Injured Student at Copier
Eve Duranceau ...
Student with the Ear Injury
Mathieu Ledoux ...
Injured Student
Adam Kosh ...
Killer's Roommate
Larissa Corriveau ...
Killer's Neighboor
Manon Lapointe ...
Killer's Mother
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Storyline

On December 6, 1989, a lone gunman walked into Montréal's École Polytechnique, a post-secondary institution focusing primarily in engineering, and began a shooting massacre. This event and its aftermath are shown from the perspective of three people. The first is the shooter himself, who blamed the problems in his life on who he considered feminists, such as female engineering students, who were his primary targets. This event was the culmination of a seven year plan, which had a self-defined end. The second is female mechanical engineering student Valérie, who earlier that day had an interview for her dream internship, working on an aerospace project. The interview process itself was a disturbing one for her in the stereotypical view by the male interviewer, who did not believe that females could work in the business and still have aspirations to have a family. And the third is Jean-François, Valérie's friend and fellow mechanical engineering student, who was one of the few who did ... Written by Huggo

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | History

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Release Date:

January 2010 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Politechnika  »

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Technical Specs

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Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

The name of the perpetrator is never once mentioned in the film. See more »

Connections

Featured in The Hour: Episode #7.83 (2011) See more »

Soundtracks

"Love in a Void"
Performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Written by Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, Kenny Morris, and Peter Fenton
See more »

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User Reviews

 
Another missed opportunity
7 January 2010 | by (Canada) – See all my reviews

I was put off by one of the very first things you see in this film, which is a statement in which the filmmakers hope to have their cake and eat it too. They claim it's "based on a true story" but they then disrespect the families by saying all characters have been fictionalized. It's the ultimate disrespect to profit (via cash or fame) on the misfortune of others, while not even telling their story. We all know that far fewer people would have chosen to see this movie if it was titled "Gately College" or something.

While I wasn't expecting a documentary, I was expecting something true to the facts. Now I'm left with the problem of figuring out whether anything in the film was true at all. Did we learn anything about the shooter? Did we learn anything about the victims? Did we learn anything about the responders? No.

Having said that, it did contain some of the most intense shooting scenes I've seen in a film, and for some reason I was also struck by the images of trees. But I was not impressed by the self-indulgent upside-down camera angles.

I think it probably is superior to Gus Van Sant's Elephant (Columbine) film, although it does follow in the same vein of being almost entirely devoid of content. If this is going to be the way that directors and writers depict traumatic mass murders, then they need to stop it.


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