The Red Siren (2002)

A 12 y.o. girl reports her powerful mom to the police for having killed the nanny. She runs away and is helped by an ex-soldier/assassin to find her dad in Portugal while the mom has her people try prevent this. Shooting follows.

Director:

Olivier Megaton

Writers:

Alain Berliner, Robert Conrath

Stars:

Jean-Marc Barr, Asia Argento, Frances Barber

Cast

Credited cast:
Jean-Marc Barr	...	Hugo Cornelius Toorop
Asia Argento	...	Anita
Frances Barber	...	Eva
Andrew Tiernan	...	Koesler
Alexandra Negrão	...	Alice
Edouard Montoute	...	Oliveira
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Vitali
Johan Leysen	...	Travis
Jean-Christophe Bouvet	...	Lucas
Carlo Brandt	...	Vondt
François Levantal	...	Sorvan
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rui Alves
Manuel Antunes
Dominique Bettenfeld	...	Mitja
Antonio Calpi

Storyline

Nearly 13, Alice rebels, telling the Paris police that her mother is a murderer. Alice has no evidence; her mother, Eva, rich and powerful, avoids charges. Alice promptly runs away, determined to find her dad whom she claims lives in Portugal. The police believe he is dead and that Alice is in denial. Nonetheless, they dispatch Anita, an Italian police officer on loan to the French, to find Alice and bring her back. Meanwhile, Eva has launched her own paramilitary force to hunt for Alice, and Alice has found a protector in Hugo, an ex-soldier turned hit man and gang member. He promises to get her to her father. All roads lead to a small town on the Portuguese coast.

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Plot Keywords:

police | police station | mercenary | girl | paris france | 

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Genres:

Crime | Thriller | Action

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jean-Marc Barr's character is none other than Hugo Toorop, the character played by Vin Diesel in Babylon A.D.

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Goofs

When Alice fires her handgun (a semi-automatic) even tho shot in slow-motion, the slide doesn't move back. This is a simple identifiable function of this sort of weapon which is shot in slow-mo intentionally in many other films for it's dramatic effect. Instead, Alice jerks the weapon back as if it were fired, and the target is magically struck by a bullet that could not have come from Alice's gun.

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Quotes

Travis: [to her mother] If you love her, leave her with me.

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Connections

Followed by Babylon A.D. (2008)

User Reviews

OK thriller

Euro thriller is flawed but mostly entertaining. Casting is a typical Euro-pudding mish-mash of international actors and varying accents, with some actors obviously and not particularly well-dubbed. Asia Argento at least does her own dialogue, but some of the voice actors here are stiff enough to be distracting, particularly the girl, who never really generates much sympathy since her line readings have all the emotion of a bored child in language class. The central relationship between the good-hearted mercenary and the girl on the run from men with guns is highly reminiscent of Leon, but without any of the chemistry. Like most European films shot in English the script suffers from frequent, occasionally laughable tin ear for the language. On the plus side the movie is quite stylish and the suspense set pieces are well-constructed and mostly quite effective. On the whole I would recommend this one, but with a more competent English language rewrite and a cast that actually could speak the language, this might have been a far better film.

Details

Official Sites:

GP Group [Russia] Official site [France] (French)

Country:

France

Language:

French English Portuguese

Release Date:

21 August 2002 (France)

Also Known As:

The Red Siren

Filming Locations:

Carrasqueira, Portugal

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$898,227

Company Credits

Production Co:

Haut et Court, StudioCanal, France 2 Cinéma

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1