Snatch’s French Cousin lacks bite.
Those expecting backpack romances and more tales about youth at play may be surprised by this departure into a whole different genre. Off the heels of his international success
L’Auberge Espagnole, Cédric Klapisch’s seems to go down the Guy Ritchie route and give his version of cool, slick and comical gangster tale with a crime never pays scenario…or does it?
Ni Pour, Ni Contre (bien au contraire) is ruthlessly violent at times, but for most part this film gives us one farcical situation after another, which is completely abolished once the film decides to become serious in the overdrive of the film’s ending. Heading a team of jello-brain gangsters is Vincent Elbaz ( Embrassez qui vous voudrez as a young, slick, well-dressed type of individual who lets his gun do the talking. In an awkward sequence, he inexplicably convinces a camera-operator to drop all sense of logic and come along a heist for a few extra Euros. Getting a smell is Caty (Marie Gillain) the eventual Clyde of future operations who unconvincingly goes from insecure little puppy to this big pit-bull, La Femme Nikita type of character looking like she’s been living this kind of life for her entire existence. Soon after this flirtatious relationship, the girl and boys enlist in a serious of crimes that are just as lengthy as Paris’ Champ-Elysees-an endless boulevard of lights that eventually come to end just like their luck.
The film does contain a couple of funny notes, the speedboat waterskiing with bullets sequence generated many laughs, but the shifts in tone from funny to some serious Tarantino-esque bits makes it hard to buy the story or for that matter its characters and, most of all, the character motivations. Klapisch and other French current directors seems to have this real affinity for the “bad guy†as displayed in the female protagonist of this picture who resembles the Jean Rochefort character in (The Man on the Train who demonstrates this semi-fascination with a Dirty Harry persona.
The characters of this film certainly take up a lot of place in the frame and somehow prevent some sort of original story from piercing through. The film engages itself in the traditional big payoff ending with the obvious twist which just leaves the viewer hungry, no not for some more but for something that is can satisfy the smallest of appetites. Ni pour, Ni contre (bien au contraire) is neither good, but a little bad.
