Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Philippe Nahon | ... | Le Boucher | |
Blandine Lenoir | ... | Sa Fille | |
Frankie Pain | ... | Sa Maitresse (as Frankye Pain) | |
![]() |
Martine Audrain | ... | Sa Belle-Mere |
![]() |
Zaven | ... | L'Homme a la Morale |
![]() |
Jean-François Rauger | ... | Agent Immobilier |
Guillaume Nicloux | ... | Directeur du Supermarche | |
![]() |
Olivier Doran | ... | Presentateur (voice) |
![]() |
Aïssa Djabri | ... | Docteur Choukroun (as Aissa Djabri) |
![]() |
Serge Faurie | ... | Directeur d'Hospice |
![]() |
Frédéric Pfohl | ... | Infirmier de Hospice (as Frederic Pfohl) |
![]() |
Stéphanie Sec | ... | Infirmiere de Hospice (as Stephanie Sec) |
![]() |
Arlette Balkis | ... | Femme Mourante |
![]() |
Gil Bertharion Jr. | ... | Camionneur (as Gil Bertharion Jr) |
![]() |
Rado | ... | Gardien de l'Hotel |
The Butcher (known from Noe's short film Carne) has done some time in jail after beating up the guy who tried to seduce his teenage mentally-handicapped daughter. Now he wants to start a new life. He leaves his daughter in an institution and moves to Lille suburbs with his mistress. She promised him a new butcher shop. She lied. The butcher decides to go back to Paris and find his daughter. Written by Pavel Smutny <pavel.smutny.ekf@vsb.cz>
Good, well-directed French film in the vein of TAXI DRIVER, where an out-of-work, 50-year-old butcher slowly begins to lose control with the people and the world around him as he encounters one indignity after another. Unable to find a job no matter how hard he tries, having to contend with abuse from the fat and controlling dominant woman he lives with just because she has a few dollars, facing the burden of having fathered an illegitimate girl who now lives in a home and is unable to communicate, the tensions mount until the butcher is in danger of taking his frustrations out on himself and the miserable scum around him. The butcher's bizarre feelings and motivations are translated to us through what he's thinking, instead of relying on talk.
This is a brutal, honest, powerful movie that pulls no punches and draws the viewer into the mind of the man slowly going over the edge. Many people will be able to relate to feeling as lost and hopeless as he does, at least at some dark point in their lives. Here is a foreign film that succeeds in staying consistently interesting and captivating, despite its not having a plethora of special effects and pretty young teen stars (which so many recent American films seem to require). *** out of ****