22 Bullets (2010)

A retired mobster goes on a revenge spree after being left for dead with 22 bullets in his body by his former childhood friend.

Director:

Richard Berry

Writers:

Franz-Olivier Giesbert (novel), Richard Berry (scenario and adaptation)

Stars:

Jean Reno, Kad Merad, Jean-Pierre Darroussin

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jean Reno	...	Charly Matteï
Kad Merad	...	Tony Zacchia
Jean-Pierre Darroussin	...	Martin Beaudinard
Marina Foïs	...	Marie Goldman
Joey Starr	...	Le pistachier (as JOEYSTARR)
Richard Berry	...	Aurelio Rampoli
Venantino Venantini	...	Padovano
Claude Gensac	...	Mme Fontarosa
Joséphine Berry	...	Eva Matteï
Max Baissette de Malglaive	...	Anatole Matteï
Catherine Samie	...	Stella Matteï
Moussa Maaskri	...	Karim
Lucie Phan	...	Pat Nguyen
Fani Kolarova	...	Christelle Mattei
Jessica Forde	...	Clothilde

Storyline

Charly Mattei has turned a new leaf on his past as an outlaw. For the past three years he's been living a comfortable life and devoting himself to his wife and two kids. However, one winter morning, he's left for dead in the underground parking garage of Marseille's Old Port with 22 bullets in his body. Against all odds, he will not die.

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Plot Keywords:

left for dead | mobster | revenge | parking garage | marseille | 

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Taglines:

Le sang versé ne sèche jamais (Spilt blood doesn't dry)

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [France] Official site [Japan]

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

24 March 2010 (France)

Also Known As:

22 Bullets

Filming Locations:

Ancienne maternité, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France

Box Office

Budget:

€18,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

EuropaCorp, TF1 Films Production, Marie Coline Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

117 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Karin Viard was originally sought out to play the part of Marie Goldman but was unable to due to scheduling issues. Marina Foïs took the part instead.

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Goofs

While Mattei is in the hospital the retrospect shows a young boy wrapping the gun handle with electrical tape. The idea is to make it impossible for the police to pick up fingerprints after the killing. However, he's using the wrong kind of tape - the smooth one instead of the sticky rough one - which renders the whole process useless.

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Connections

Referenced in Nanoman: Fekalonia (2015)

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Soundtracks

La Vie en Rose
Music by Louiguy
Lyrics by Édith Piaf

User Reviews

Have some more bullets, please.

It is against my method of reviewing to compare one movie to another and I won't do so here either, but I want to mention that Jean Reno played a great role in the movie Leon as an social inept assassin who gets saddled with a teen girl. There is however nothing remarkable about 22 Bullets or The immortal(L'Immortal) as it is called in France.

Reno plays Mattei a retired gangster who gets gunned down in an underground garage by an unknown group of men for unknown reasons. Instead of dying he survives the 22 bullets that hit him and it is obvious that he is going for some payback time. The hit men send one of their own to the hospital to finish the work they started, but he kills the wrong person.

The next one and half hour we follow Mattei down a beaten path figuring out who the hit men are, why they tried to kill him and killing them one after the other. This trail of dead bodies would have given setups for some special deaths, like having the guy with the dogs killed by his dogs, or killed with an overdoses of cocaine, for Mattei catches him in a drugs lab, but nothing of the kind is ever used. It is pretty boring run-of-the-mill what you get to see.

The movie keeps forgetting important stuff. For instance Mattei is numb in his right hand but yet he can steer a motorcycle several times in the movie during chases. How the heck is Mattei going to control the throttle with his numb right hand?

At yet another time we witness how the female cop is being spied upon in her car so the hit men can find out where Mattei's family is, but a few scenes later we see Mattei planning with the same cop in the same car and apparently the hit men are now not listening in.

All kinds of silliness abounds. At one moment Mattei has to liberate his young son from the bad guys. So he jumps on the windscreen of the car, then proceeds to pound the guy against the car slamming him repeatedly, while he knows his son is locked up in the boot and must have been terrified to death. At another moment Mattei is fighting with someone in a kitchen. He gets overpowered, and just right at that time the cops bust in to save him.

The police is, of course, hugely inept so Mattei can get away with killing his enemies unopposed. At one moment the police botches a tailing job when they try to find out where he goes by chasing him around town with cars. With such an inept law enforcement agency Mattei can even get away with gunning people down in broad daylight in the streets.

One watches this movie, is baffled by the silliness and looks for any redeeming qualities. Well, some attempts a depth are made, but really there isn't much here that warrants any further attention. A b-movie at best.