For the first two thirds of its length, this film is a first rate thriller. It establishes the characters very well and you quickly become engaged in the plot, which is made very easy to follow. The acting is excellent,( in particular Clovis Cornillac as the malevolent private detective Plender). There are moments of true tension. Its definitely one of the most enjoyable films of its type I've seen in years. Then BAM - Vincent is arrested for murder and the plot descends quickly into the worst kind of overwrought Hollywood action flick - the kind of thing that Harrison Ford does when he's in his innocent man wrongly-accused mode (complete with implausible stunts). I was really disappointed as the characters become involved in a melodramatic pantomime. What the hell happened?? A superb thriller ruined in the last half hour!!! I have given it a six rating because I enjoyed more of it than not - had it not been for the last half hour it would have got a nine!!
19 Reviews
Into the snake pit
stensson7 August 2007
Let's face it. This script was made for Hollywood and no doubt, the producers want to sell it to them for a remake.
This doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's a "classic" thriller, with the classic Cape Fear ingredients, but it certainly is by no means clear there it leads you. Clovis Corvillac is the splendid bad guy here and not a square character. Very dangerous, but also with trustworthy weak points.
There are some somewhat stupid action scenes to be found, but apart from that, this is about real people. OK, this couldn't happen in real life, but that doesn't matter. As I said, it's a classic thriller.
This doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's a "classic" thriller, with the classic Cape Fear ingredients, but it certainly is by no means clear there it leads you. Clovis Corvillac is the splendid bad guy here and not a square character. Very dangerous, but also with trustworthy weak points.
There are some somewhat stupid action scenes to be found, but apart from that, this is about real people. OK, this couldn't happen in real life, but that doesn't matter. As I said, it's a classic thriller.
Poor tattoo, good analogy
JohnRayPeterson18 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
If you saw this movie in a theatre then you'd have to agree, you get your money's worth. It's two hours long and precious little of it is wasted. It is categorized as a thriller, nothing else, and there's no arguing about that. The suspense builds deliberately from the beginning and it is not very predictable, just as a thriller ought to be.
Yvan Attal is pretty much the same character he is in most of his movies, but that's not bad. Clovis Cornillac, who I was not familiar with, does a great job as the villain; he's despicable as can be. You know he's a villain from the beginning but the extent to which he'll go to appease the vengeful yearning of some thirty years is what makes the movie works for me. Attal's wife played by Minna Haapkylä was not the most convincing; perhaps the ambiguous mental state we presume she's in has something to do with it. That's probably the weak point of the picture. I don't understand the low rating; if the English dubbed version was sharing vote with the original French version, as I suspect, it may have something to do with that low rating. Olga Kurylenko, as Sofia, is worth alone, a point in rating for euro-aesthetics; perhaps not my finest argument, but just go along if you haven't seen the movie.
Yvan Attal is pretty much the same character he is in most of his movies, but that's not bad. Clovis Cornillac, who I was not familiar with, does a great job as the villain; he's despicable as can be. You know he's a villain from the beginning but the extent to which he'll go to appease the vengeful yearning of some thirty years is what makes the movie works for me. Attal's wife played by Minna Haapkylä was not the most convincing; perhaps the ambiguous mental state we presume she's in has something to do with it. That's probably the weak point of the picture. I don't understand the low rating; if the English dubbed version was sharing vote with the original French version, as I suspect, it may have something to do with that low rating. Olga Kurylenko, as Sofia, is worth alone, a point in rating for euro-aesthetics; perhaps not my finest argument, but just go along if you haven't seen the movie.
Formulaic French psycho-thriller
kinsayder22 July 2007
"Le Serpent" refers to the snake tattooed across the back of bad guy Joseph Plender (Clovis Cornillac), a seriously mixed-up individual who traces all his problems to a childhood prank that went horribly wrong. The man he holds responsible is Vincent Mandel, a fashion photographer played by Yvan Attal. The title may also be a reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, though no-one could describe Vincent's life as paradise, even before the arrival of Plender. He's in the middle of a messy divorce, and the last thing he needs is a ghost from his past that could prejudice his chances of getting custody of his children.
Yvan Attal is an appealing choice for the role of Vincent. He has the range to be both vulnerable in the early scenes, and tough and resourceful as the story develops. Clovis Cornillac, as Vincent's nemesis, gives a performance that is (necessarily) more contained, but is nevertheless very effective. His most interesting scene comes when Vincent's beautiful wife (Minna Haapkyla) offers herself to him and his response is to walk off in disgust and scrub himself from head to foot.
Though the film has the ability to surprise in scenes such as this, there's no escaping the fact that this is a conventional Hollywood psychological thriller in French dressing. Plender's progression from slimy blackmailer to serial-murdering super-villain is all part of the formula for such things, as is the flight from the police, the mano-a-mano confrontation (one of them does remember to bring a gun but it's quickly lost), the false ending...
The solid performances (including comedian Pierre Richard, cast against type as a fellow victim of Plender) and some stylish direction by Eric Barbier help to compensate for the fairly predictable story. Those looking for more intelligence, originality and depth in their recent French psycho-thrillers should turn to "Caché", "Feux rouges", "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien" and "Ne le dis à personne", to name just four examples. Each of those films will reward repeated viewings. "Le Serpent", I fear, will not.
Yvan Attal is an appealing choice for the role of Vincent. He has the range to be both vulnerable in the early scenes, and tough and resourceful as the story develops. Clovis Cornillac, as Vincent's nemesis, gives a performance that is (necessarily) more contained, but is nevertheless very effective. His most interesting scene comes when Vincent's beautiful wife (Minna Haapkyla) offers herself to him and his response is to walk off in disgust and scrub himself from head to foot.
Though the film has the ability to surprise in scenes such as this, there's no escaping the fact that this is a conventional Hollywood psychological thriller in French dressing. Plender's progression from slimy blackmailer to serial-murdering super-villain is all part of the formula for such things, as is the flight from the police, the mano-a-mano confrontation (one of them does remember to bring a gun but it's quickly lost), the false ending...
The solid performances (including comedian Pierre Richard, cast against type as a fellow victim of Plender) and some stylish direction by Eric Barbier help to compensate for the fairly predictable story. Those looking for more intelligence, originality and depth in their recent French psycho-thrillers should turn to "Caché", "Feux rouges", "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien" and "Ne le dis à personne", to name just four examples. Each of those films will reward repeated viewings. "Le Serpent", I fear, will not.
Well-made but derivative and needlessly overlong
gridoon202423 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Le Serpent" must be the millionth variation on the innocent-man-on-the-run theme; Hollywood has been doing this sort of story for decades. The script, for some reason, makes it perfectly clear right from the start who the bad guy is and how he operates, thereby largely removing the element of surprise; when he starts infiltrating the life of the leading man, we're waiting for the latter to catch up to what we already know. Still, taken on its own terms (and genre), "Le Serpent" is well-made and has some suspenseful moments, though you have to wait for more than an hour for most of them (at 116 minutes, this film is too long). Clovis Cornillac makes a very convincing bad guy. Olga Kurylenko's part is played up in some DVD posters because of her subsequent stardom, but it's really quite small (and yes, it does feature nudity, but she is a little too thin for my tastes here). **1/2 out of 4.
Bad things happen to stupid people
kosmasp1 August 2007
You have to be clear that our main actor will do stupid things here. If you can accept that and won't start thinking, about his every move, as if it were the dumbest thing a person can do, than you could enjoy this movie, otherwise ...
A friend of mine, who disliked this movie a lot, stated it clearer. If characters in a slasher movie act a certain way, you kind of expect them to do so. But in a thriller, you'd be excused to expect, that they'd think before they do something. Again it's not the case here. But apart from that, the actors play their roles great, the story is good enough and there still is tension (if you let your guard down, as said before). Enough said then ...
A friend of mine, who disliked this movie a lot, stated it clearer. If characters in a slasher movie act a certain way, you kind of expect them to do so. But in a thriller, you'd be excused to expect, that they'd think before they do something. Again it's not the case here. But apart from that, the actors play their roles great, the story is good enough and there still is tension (if you let your guard down, as said before). Enough said then ...
Has nothing that will make it stand apart from a million other thrillers
seawalker16 September 2007
Warning: Spoilers
First things first. Do not believe English language trailers for French films. They lie. According to the trailer for "Le Serpent" you are led to believe that Vincent's (Yvan Attal) life is perfect. That Vincent has a dream home, a dream family and a dream existence. Then, into this idyllic fantasy lifestyle comes a man seeking to destroy it.... But why?
OK. So far, so predictable. Luckily the trailer was mostly utter nonsense and incredibly misleading. Vincent's life is not perfect. Vincent's life is a mess. He is in the middle of a bitter divorce. His soon-to-be-ex wife is trying to take his children to live with her in another country. She looks like she may win. Then, after a sinister turn of events, a man appears offering help and then... and so on and so forth.
I suppose that "Le Serpent" is a serviceable enough, if unoriginal, thriller, but I couldn't shake the niggling feeling that, despite some refreshing Gallic explicitness (Olga Kurylenko is extremely hot), it's true home would have been as one of those two part ITV thrillers they show on a Monday/Tuesday night, starring the likes of Neil Pearson, Robson Green and Jemma Redgrave. Not that there is a lot of obvious Englishness remaining in "Le Serpent", despite the fact that it was originally based on a novel "Plender" by "Get Carter" writer Ted Lewis, and was originally set in an English Northern town in the late 1960's. It's not a bad story. I would like to read that novel to see how faithful "Le Serpent" was to the plot.
"Le Serpent" is not bad for an afternoon diversion, but has nothing that will make it stand apart from a million other thrillers.
OK. So far, so predictable. Luckily the trailer was mostly utter nonsense and incredibly misleading. Vincent's life is not perfect. Vincent's life is a mess. He is in the middle of a bitter divorce. His soon-to-be-ex wife is trying to take his children to live with her in another country. She looks like she may win. Then, after a sinister turn of events, a man appears offering help and then... and so on and so forth.
I suppose that "Le Serpent" is a serviceable enough, if unoriginal, thriller, but I couldn't shake the niggling feeling that, despite some refreshing Gallic explicitness (Olga Kurylenko is extremely hot), it's true home would have been as one of those two part ITV thrillers they show on a Monday/Tuesday night, starring the likes of Neil Pearson, Robson Green and Jemma Redgrave. Not that there is a lot of obvious Englishness remaining in "Le Serpent", despite the fact that it was originally based on a novel "Plender" by "Get Carter" writer Ted Lewis, and was originally set in an English Northern town in the late 1960's. It's not a bad story. I would like to read that novel to see how faithful "Le Serpent" was to the plot.
"Le Serpent" is not bad for an afternoon diversion, but has nothing that will make it stand apart from a million other thrillers.
Hollywood on the river Seine
arsenick2 September 2007
Mainly shot in "La Defense" area of the French capital city, which looks like US cities with its high towers, this movie has been written to be adapted in Hollywood. However, it is not a fake adaptation in French. Barbier did well as he focuses on the deeper feelings of the main 2 characters (may be a more independent movies' style)while opposing them in a face to face combat (just as any good blockbuster). It is a clever movie, very close to psycho-thrillers from Hollywood, starring Michael Douglas or Harisson ford, where the family of the looser-hero is threatened, his life beginning to become in jeopardy thanks to a cold manipulator who is his best nemesis. It is definitely not the same quality as Cape Fear, but contains some of its main elements. Actors Yvan Attal and Pierre Richard fit well the Douglas'suit of this movie, and Cornillac is a quite good Jeroen Krabbe French copy. Do not forget the other actors who perfectly play the "character" type whose purpose is to fulfill their mission, no more no less. Do not forget the pop corn!!
A good Noir Film
doctorrugger14 January 2007
A short comment to express all the pleasure I've had watching this film. Actors are very good; specially Cornillac who gives a disquieting credibility to his character, but Attal is impressive too in the role of the "not so good" hero. Barbier enjoys to revivify all our inner terrors (dark, death, madness ...) and sets the end of his film in a particularly spooky place. I regret I haven't read the book of which the film is inspired but I am sure the quality of the scenario is no wonder. I am pleased to see that the French can venture in a genre that we leave generally to the American cinema. I hope this film will be received worldwide with all the success it deserves.
Original feeling, generic plot
paul2001sw-121 November 2010
'Le Serpent' certainly starts well: a smart, stylish thriller with an intriguing set up and a skillful use of changes of pace. The cast are all excellent; and the cinematography captures a picture of modern, commercial Paris, not exactly run down but cold and devoid of charm. But for all its promise, it can't escape its generic (and essentially uninteresting) premise: that of one man pitted against an all-powerful psychopath, who cares about nothing except ruining the hero (but who eventually, to his own cost, prefers talking about his crimes to finishing them off). There are some similarities to 'Tell No One', another classy but ultimately implausible story.
Le Serpent - c'est superb!!!!
gary-119311 October 2007
This film is truly excellent - This is one of the best films I've seen in a long while. Both the plot and acting are absolutely first rate. OK so it's in French with subtitles however within just a minutes you feel like your actually in there with them. Anyway it's set in France and should be in French. The sad thing is that there were only three of us watching it which seems to be a pattern with subtitled films these days. No doubt Hollywood will jump on it so you'll be able to see it in a form of English one day - but it won't be the same. All I can say is if you didn't go because you couldn't be 'arsed to read the subtitles you missed something really really special.
Lurid stuff
houndtang7519 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Slightly unlikely French adaptation of a British thriller - 'Plender' by Ted 'Get Carter' Lewis - the French do seem to like these kind of British/American thrillers, 'Tell No One' was in a similar vein. The film starts well, with the characters intriguingly introduced, but the plot gets increasingly lurid and far-fetched. When Vincent smashes through a window and onto some scaffolding to escape the authorities all credibility goes with him. It's never boring and is well-acted, and in its unlikely plot revelations somewhat reminiscent of 'Oldboy'. In fact, had this been a Korean or Japanese film it probably would not have seemed as silly.
well spun yarn
debs_wild19 September 2007
I had read a brief review of this film and it was intriguing enough to get me to the cinema. There were only 3 of us in there and I felt people are missing out by missing this film. It was superbly acted. Maybe not enough people go to see subtitled films, hopefully that won't put people off this. There's parts they're not essential as the acting and shots are good enough to carry you through. I can see a Hollywood remake on the horizon which in a way is a big shame, but it would make a fantastic box office smash. Glad it was shown at my cinema on its own merits though. It's a great thriller and even if you feel there's no surprises (each to their own) it doesn't detract from a good tale well told. The only thing with the subtitles was a couple of spelling mistakes, one particularly made a totally different meaning.... apparently one character served in the 'Golf' War!
Maybe the best film noir ever made!
kluseba12 January 2011
I bought this film at a cheap price at a drugstore because I found the story intriguing enough. I haven't heard about the movie or the book before and didn't even know the main actor Yvan Attal. Now, I will never forget him or this movie because I found a true and unexpected masterpiece by chance. This movie is dark, absorbing and intense and sends shivers down my spine by delivering everything a great psycho thriller should show us. This movie is a disturbing vengeance movie and those who always thought that the French were only able to do emotional and intellectual dramas and comedy movies should now be convinced that they can also create some heavier stuff. The great acting and the intense atmosphere are outstanding and even not comparable to other psycho thrillers so that the French have once again created something unique with this movie.
The storyline is slow paced and mysterious and becomes heavier and more and more disturbing. The characters are extremely interesting. The main actor Yvan Attal does an incredible job as a photographer that is going to get divorced soon that finds himself suddenly in the middle of a creepy nightmare that becomes reality without really knowing why. Clovis Cornillac plays the bad guy in a very mysterious, silent and creepy way that is chasing Yvan Attal and trying to destroy his life for a reason that is only revealed in a dramatical final showdown. It is hard to believe that this actor that plays a dangerous maniac and killer in this intense flick has already played Asterix and convinces in both styles. Those two actors are strong enough to carry the whole movie and we can add to them Olga Kurylenko that has a short role as a mysterious and beautiful femme fatale. The movie has a few action, gore and sex scenes but they are only some entertaining gimmicks as the whole movie is underlined by a very depressive atmosphere. The violence of this movie has a mental and not a physical touch. The whole scenery and style of directing is very photographic, very aesthetic and detailed so that a brilliant job by the director, screenwriter and cameramen are added to the perfect executions of the two main actors. Even Alfred Hitchcock or David Lynch could not have created a darker movie and only beat this movie in terms of weirdness and originality or pioneer's work. That's why "Le serpent" is maybe not properly innovating its genre but in my opinion by far the best of its kind in the last decade, maybe together with the epic vengeance movie "Oldboy" and the heavily disturbing instant Quebec classic "5150 rue des Ormes". It's a sad thing that this movie didn't get the attention it would have deserved so I would ask anyone that saw this movie to spread the word about it. I'm close to give a ten point rating to this flick which is a thing that I rarely consider. I just give nine points to this little gem because I haven't seen it often enough and because I don't know if this movie will still feel that intense in a decade or so.
All in all, I highly recommend this movie to anyone that likes disturbing and intriguing psycho thriller or simply the film noir genre. This is truly a rare masterpiece and a must see!
The storyline is slow paced and mysterious and becomes heavier and more and more disturbing. The characters are extremely interesting. The main actor Yvan Attal does an incredible job as a photographer that is going to get divorced soon that finds himself suddenly in the middle of a creepy nightmare that becomes reality without really knowing why. Clovis Cornillac plays the bad guy in a very mysterious, silent and creepy way that is chasing Yvan Attal and trying to destroy his life for a reason that is only revealed in a dramatical final showdown. It is hard to believe that this actor that plays a dangerous maniac and killer in this intense flick has already played Asterix and convinces in both styles. Those two actors are strong enough to carry the whole movie and we can add to them Olga Kurylenko that has a short role as a mysterious and beautiful femme fatale. The movie has a few action, gore and sex scenes but they are only some entertaining gimmicks as the whole movie is underlined by a very depressive atmosphere. The violence of this movie has a mental and not a physical touch. The whole scenery and style of directing is very photographic, very aesthetic and detailed so that a brilliant job by the director, screenwriter and cameramen are added to the perfect executions of the two main actors. Even Alfred Hitchcock or David Lynch could not have created a darker movie and only beat this movie in terms of weirdness and originality or pioneer's work. That's why "Le serpent" is maybe not properly innovating its genre but in my opinion by far the best of its kind in the last decade, maybe together with the epic vengeance movie "Oldboy" and the heavily disturbing instant Quebec classic "5150 rue des Ormes". It's a sad thing that this movie didn't get the attention it would have deserved so I would ask anyone that saw this movie to spread the word about it. I'm close to give a ten point rating to this flick which is a thing that I rarely consider. I just give nine points to this little gem because I haven't seen it often enough and because I don't know if this movie will still feel that intense in a decade or so.
All in all, I highly recommend this movie to anyone that likes disturbing and intriguing psycho thriller or simply the film noir genre. This is truly a rare masterpiece and a must see!
My Defenses Are Down
writers_reign14 September 2007
Warning: Spoilers
One of the plus factors about this excellent thriller is that unless you happen to live there you wouldn't know you were in Paris; a few years ago there was an equally fine thriller, A La Petite Semaine which was shot largely in Porte de Clignacourt, North Paris whilst this one was shot mainly a few miles West in La Defense (whose Metro station was used to great effect in Buffet Froid. There have been several notable French films in this genre lately, indeed the most recent, Ne le dis a personne (Tell No One) has only just finished making the rounds, and now here is yet another perhaps just a notch or two below 'personne' but still very, very good. The two have elements in common, an ordinary man suddenly involved in a nightmare and coming under suspicion of murder, there's even a chase sequence similar to but briefer and less tense than the one with Vincent Cluzet which is not the same as saying that Yvan Attal is not every bit as fine an actor as Cluzet and he more than holds his own against Clovis Cornillac (who also had a large role in A La Petite Semaine) who has by far the 'showier' role as a psychotic obsessed with vengeance for a childhood prank that went wrong. Why they had to go to Finland for Attal's wife I'll never know - his own long-time real life partner Charlotte Gainsbourg could have played it equally well - but Minna Haapkyla is certainly adequate. All in all this is a stylish thriller and more than worth watching out for.
Beware of the punching bags!
dbdumonteil3 March 2009
Warning: Spoilers
"Le Serpent" begins as an exciting action-packed thriller ,and its first hour ,although rather derivative ,holds the viewer spellbound .The performances are quite good ,particularly Yvan Attal as a "bad-wisher" friend and a cast again type Pierre Richard in an underwritten part.
"Revenge is a dish best eaten cold" could be another title for "Le Serpent" ( a tattoo on the fiend's back)
Half way through we learn why this old pal doesn't want his old school friend any good.And things begin to deteriorate beyond that point.There's a very unpleasant side:being a punching bag is the worst thing that can happen to a boy (or a girl) at school.People who did not experiment such a thing can't relate to that.Vincent had lost his dad,his mother could not stand her only son's situation.Even if they did not do it on purpose ,all those (probably rich kids) adolescents were responsible for the horrible thing that happened to their unfortunate mate.And Plender revealed himself a coward.
The second half sheds new light on Plender:he has actually remained a coward,incapable of fighting without a lawyer (it's the lawyer who takes the chances) or an army of cops (and how dumb these cops must be not to have found the prisoners!).
This apparently neuter thriller is in fact the triumph of the establishment which refuses a misfit his place in the sun: the adolescent is forced to give up his studies whereas his torturers will live a protected bourgeois life .The moral is very simplistic and the last picture is a stupid happy end ,which explains why the cops had to be so stupid.
"Revenge is a dish best eaten cold" could be another title for "Le Serpent" ( a tattoo on the fiend's back)
Half way through we learn why this old pal doesn't want his old school friend any good.And things begin to deteriorate beyond that point.There's a very unpleasant side:being a punching bag is the worst thing that can happen to a boy (or a girl) at school.People who did not experiment such a thing can't relate to that.Vincent had lost his dad,his mother could not stand her only son's situation.Even if they did not do it on purpose ,all those (probably rich kids) adolescents were responsible for the horrible thing that happened to their unfortunate mate.And Plender revealed himself a coward.
The second half sheds new light on Plender:he has actually remained a coward,incapable of fighting without a lawyer (it's the lawyer who takes the chances) or an army of cops (and how dumb these cops must be not to have found the prisoners!).
This apparently neuter thriller is in fact the triumph of the establishment which refuses a misfit his place in the sun: the adolescent is forced to give up his studies whereas his torturers will live a protected bourgeois life .The moral is very simplistic and the last picture is a stupid happy end ,which explains why the cops had to be so stupid.
Highly recommended
Thorsten-Krings4 October 2010
The Serpent is a very nice old fashioned film in the sense that it creates suspense from telling a very intricate story. I was at first sceptical if you can translate a Ted Lewis novel into France in the 2000s. But it worked really well. You keep wondering what is really happening and each time you think yoiu know the answer the story takes a new twist. The film is also very well made in terms of how it plays with our sympathies for protagonist and villain. It is just one of those films that keeps you drawing deeper and deeper into the story. The acting is superb with lots of gratuitous nudity by Olga Kurylenko. Visually the film is very well made with dark images, a great set and a very spooky final scene. So this film is well worth watching and shows what a timeless genius Ted Lewis was.
The Serpent wriggles out of mediocrity
mark-whait16 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Despite a raft of clichés and see-it-coming plot twists, French movie The Serpent is an intelligent and stylish thriller, which delivers its intentions without popcorn gloss. Yvan Attal is the anti-hero photographer who is framed by a beautiful model and thereon in blackmailed by and old boyhood 'friend' who is, surprise surprise, a psychotic killer (Cloris Cornillac) out for revenge after a traumatised youth perpetrated by his old pals. For good measure, he is still obsessed with his recently deceased mother, and regularly visits her glass coffin to pay homage (just in case we really wanted a big neon sign as to who the psycho is or will turn out to be). Yet for all that, the movie still delivers with an assured confidence, and the cast do well and lift it to very decent heights.
From Hull to Paris
dnhalliday12 July 2023
Ted Lewis wrote "Plender" after the success of Get Carter and as I understand it offered it to Mike Hodges the director to film as a follow up but Hodges was busy with other projects and it had to wait 35 years until Eric Barbier took it on.
The book is an unrelentingly bleak story of the seedy underworld of Hull and its environs with elements of class and local power politics, so I was interested to see how a French film maker would depict it. In the event he completely changed the story retaining only one or two characters and scenes from the book. The dvd has an interview with the director in which he says he is a Ted Lewis fan and has read all his books but then fails to explain why he discarded Lewis' story in favour of his own.
So we must forget the book and consider the film on its own merits. Clovis Cornillac is splendidly sinister as Plender and the rest of the cast act well in their roles. Olga Kurylenko appears nude as per the publicity but her scenes are very brief.
Barbier's rewritten story is pretty good with plenty of tension and plot twists and the photography and general direction are also well up to par.
I particularly liked the sets at the beginning of the staircase to Vincent's studio and towards the end of the abandoned asylum.
The book is an unrelentingly bleak story of the seedy underworld of Hull and its environs with elements of class and local power politics, so I was interested to see how a French film maker would depict it. In the event he completely changed the story retaining only one or two characters and scenes from the book. The dvd has an interview with the director in which he says he is a Ted Lewis fan and has read all his books but then fails to explain why he discarded Lewis' story in favour of his own.
So we must forget the book and consider the film on its own merits. Clovis Cornillac is splendidly sinister as Plender and the rest of the cast act well in their roles. Olga Kurylenko appears nude as per the publicity but her scenes are very brief.
Barbier's rewritten story is pretty good with plenty of tension and plot twists and the photography and general direction are also well up to par.
I particularly liked the sets at the beginning of the staircase to Vincent's studio and towards the end of the abandoned asylum.
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