Reviews & Ratings for
Point Blank More at IMDbPro »À bout portant (original title)

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35 out of 49 people found the following review useful:
Another great French Thriller!!, 7 May 2011
Author: rightwingisevil from United States

this movie will keep your eyes open and sit on the edge of your chair once it starts. i often consider the good french action thrillers are the most creative and original, that's why Hollywood keeps copycatting and adapting from the french movies one after another once there are new good french thriller movies in the market. "the next three days(not a bad adaptation)" and "the tourist(just horrible!)" are the most recent examples adapted from the french originals.

this 'point blank' is a great thriller from beginning to the end. the chases from the hospital to the subway station and the chaos in the hospital and the police central are just exceptionally directed, edited, acted. i was sleepy before watching this movie, but once it started, the heavy eyelids just became light and wide open.

i didn't quite like the final scene. it seems a bit unnecessary but at the same time quite necessary, and that's a funny thought.

19 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Tight action thriller, no CGI , car chases or explosions, 30 August 2011
Author: bobbobwhite from san ramon ca

Outside of Hollywood, good and realistic action films can be successful without the Hollywood Big 3 of American action films.....CGI, car chases and boo-coo explosions. And, French films always deliver when mean, harsh, brutal and uncaring play the main roles. Great looking pregnant wife, Liam Neesom-resembling husband, despicable and brutal criminals uncaring about human values and life, and brutal dirty cops even less caring about human life made this one of my faves for the year so far.

Point Blank was a 100% serious film with great pacing and no smart-ass or comedic side tracks or poorly placed romance throw-ins as are so often stupidly done by Hollywood, plus it had plenty of the most terrifying and brutal behavior of human psychopathy to scare you silly. Other than a few timing errors where the director stayed with a few scenes longer than he should have for best effect, such as the one when the dirty cop was discovered, it was a well done seat-edge thriller to the end. And, yes, we all knew how it would end, as all those horrible experiences resulted in a typical ending.......good for the good guys and bad for the baddies.

How regular people in real life could ever have more or less normal lives after all that bloody terror and murder is beyond my understanding, but somehow these film characters seemed to be able to do it.

13 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Another exciting thriller from France., 6 October 2011

Author: Rockwell_Cronenberg from United States

This is how you make an action-packed thriller. Swift, brutal and void of any kind of silly subplots that give too much time to words when the characters should just be racing for their lives. They quickly establish the characters in a clean and effective way and then shock you by going right into the action. With a very nice 80 minute runtime the film breezes by without dragging for a moment and you really just get caught up in the exciting chaos of it all. There's definitely no reinventing the wheel here, but it stands up with Taken and Running Scared as one of the best action films to come out this past decade. It was exactly what I wanted.

There were some moments that really made me sit up in my chair just by how much of a gut punch they were; some things I definitely didn't see coming. Gilles Lellouche is a great leading man, capable of portraying both the everyman and the action star qualities of his character while still being completely believable when he has to portray the dramatic moments to keep you on his side and understanding of what he is fighting for. It's stylish as hell and is seriously just pushing it's foot to pavement for the entire running time. This is a real crowd-pleaser.

13 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Excellent thriller, 13 September 2011

Author: dball-14 from United States

Someone who complains about "lack of depth" doesn't get it. This is a very well-acted--in fact brilliantly acted--well-directed, well-paced, well-plotted thriller. If you want "depth", see subtle films about love and betrayal and friendship, etc. Nothing wrong with that, but this is a thriller. We know enough about the characters to make us care, and man, we do care! and make them believable. That's quite enough for a thriller.

As others have observed, the actors are magnificent. First, the unwilling hero: as in great Hitchcock films (I'm thinking particularly of "North by Northwest"), he's an ordinary guy, not a tough, trained super-hero. Gilles Lelouche is totally convincing in that role. And the one who seems to be the bad guy, Roshdy Zem, and who develops in the course of the film, is perfect. Neither he nor anybody else in this film overacts.

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Fast, intense, virtuosic camera and editing, keeping a formula situation alive and kicking, 14 June 2012

Author: secondtake from United States

Point Blank (2010)

Not to be confused with the semi-classic 1967 movie of the same title with Lee Marvin, this is not a remake or an echo of that. What this French action thriller is fits another category--the non-stop kinetic run from the bad-guys film, which has become a kind of staple. Think the Bourne movies, or a couple later Liam Neeson films, where the hero gets himself into a terrible situation that requires running and running and running.

And that's enough, in a way, because you can't stop looking. There are no lulls. In fact, some of the moments have such kinetic surprise to them they deserve study. Your stomach will turn. Don't expect a big rationale. Don't even quite expect to care for anything except that our main man, and his wife, survive the ordeal. There are crosses and double-crosses. There is horrid abuse of women which I could do without (the rationale might just be the perils of Pauline kind of thing, saving her with the handsome male to the rescue, but it's just plain abusive). There is one female cop who is a great tough archetype. And lots of bad violent men.

But, truly, none of this is meant to matter. You just grab onto the handles and don't let go. It's really really well made, visually, the camera-work and editing taking front seat. I'd see it on the biggest screen you can, since that's where it's all at.

16 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Another Great Thriller by Fred Cavayé, 1 August 2011

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The health care assistant Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) goes with his pregnant wife Nadia Cortez (Elena Anaya) to the doctor that recommends a complete rest for Nadia for the next weeks. Samuel will be promoted to nurse very soon and he is very happy.

When he is working in the night shift, a man tries to kill the patient Hugo Sartet (Roschdy Zem), who had been wounded by a motorcycle while chased by two men. However, Samuel uses the adequate medical procedure and saves the man. On the next morning, he is proud of his accomplishment and telling Nadia at home when he is attacked by a stranger. When he wakes-up, he receives a phone call from the stranger telling that Nadia has been abducted and he needs to remove Hugo from the hospital until midday, otherwise she will be murdered.

The police department is divided by the squads of Detective Patrick Werner (Gérard Lanvin), who is investigating the murder of the millionaire Francis Meyer, and Detective Catherine Fabre (Mireille Perrier), who is in charge of the case in the hospital, and the groups have an internal dispute. Samuel rescues Hugo and is hunted by the Detective Fabre on the streets. When Samuel is ready to trade Hugo for Nadia, they are hunted by two armed men and Samuel and Hugo runs to a safe house. Samuel calls Detective Fabre and when she arrives, she is murdered by Werner and his detectives. Sooner Samuel learns that Werner's team is corrupt and now he needs Hugo to save his wife.

This is the second film directed by Fred Cavayé that I have recently seen and both are great full of action thrillers. They have similar story lines, with a common man forced to an extreme act to save his beloved wife, and pursuits through the streets of Paris. But the stories are engaging and different from each other.

I hope that Hollywood does not destroy this plot with a remake the same way this industry did with "Pour Elle". Further, I am looking forward to see his next work. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "À Queima Roupa" ("Point Blank")

10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Excellent, 10 October 2011

Author: Amin Jacoub from Croatia

French cinema is well known to the audience, especially to those tending to Art film. Besides French film influence which is the reference in the field, France is also very well known as a land of the Crime genre. I am myself great fan of their Film Noir and New Wave and I am totally crazy about their crime (gangster) movies from earlier periods and contemporary as well.

French crime movies did not loose its charm even today, and almost every year there are few great titles. It comes to my mind modern director like it is Olivier Marchal which movies I like very much, but there are respectable list of other names, both directors and actors.

Point Blank movie did not disappoint, and it were a pleasure to watch it. Even the name reminds me on classic US crime movie with Lee Marvin, but it have nothing similar with it. The plot of Point Blank is good, and somehow original, even it is not hard to predicts the end, which is usual for most movie.

This is not pure crime movie, I would add that there is a bit of thriller smell in it. The actors did a good job, especially well known actor Roschdy Zem which can be seen in most of the crime movies. I am not familiar with director Fred Cavaye, but he did a good job here, and he offer us fine work in tradition of French crime cinema.

For those looking for typical Hollywood action pack, maybe it is better to look at something else, but for those that like classic action crime European movie, it is more than recommended.

7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Fast Fun Believable Action, 11 January 2012

Author: kingdom-krud from United States

Yup, Point Blank is a no lulls, come-atcha action movie made all the more believable by the nice plot and superior script. No superspy here, just an everyman caught up in the wrong place & time.

And yes, there are a few plot twists that I find a bit hard to swallow, but because the protagonist is so compelling & believable, I'll take them without looking back.

I credit the editing on this movie for keeping it surgically precise. There are no breaks or falters, Point Blank keeps building towards it's action climax.

9/10 - Highly Recommended.

8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Riveting Stuff, 26 December 2011

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This was very entertaining French thriller and, at 84 minutes, a good way to stay riveted to the screen for under an hour-and-a-half. I wish more movies were this short in length.

I didn't know the actors but it didn't matter. In fact it helped because I could focus entirely on the story. The had subtitles but it didn't matter; they didn't interfere with the viewing. They were short and to the point.

It got a little confusing at times as everyone seems to be a bad guy - crooks and cops - and this poor "Samuel Pierret" (Gilles Lellouche) has to be on his own for a good amount of time as he races through the city of Paris, dodging bullets and punches all while desperately trying to find his kidnapped - and very pregnant - wife.

Yeah, even though you knew things were going to turn out all right, it was still very suspenseful and almost every character in this story took his and her lumps in some fashion. I would definitely watch this movie again.

10 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Smart Action Thriller, 25 December 2011

Author: Jim Gilligan from Lafayette, IN

Smart action thrillers are rare. Rarer still is a smart action thriller that features a complex yet comprehensible (and credible) plot, characters you care about, and vivid, crisp directing. "Point Blank" is one of these rarities. It utilizes many elements of classic action films—an innocent "good guy" who unwittingly becomes caught up in a dangerous plot, a woman in jeopardy, corrupt cops, and unexpected twists. The film avoids cliché, however, and it moves along at lightning speed (total running time is about 80 minutes). The French setting is an added bonus, and the acting and editing are very well done. Subtract a star if subtitles annoy you.

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