Who sez Euro-crime is dead? Not I! Written by, Alexandre 'Switchblade Romance' Aja, with a score by, Philippe Sarde, and starring talented actors, Richard Berry, Said Taghmaoui, Anouk Grinberg & reliable Euro-heavy, Joaquin de Almedia, Alexandre Arcady's undeniably quirky, 'Break of Dawn' is an enjoyably eccentric, entertainingly bullet-blasted, Romania-set action/thriller about two disparate, suicidal, death-craving assassins who form a singular friendship while their seemingly straightforward contract in Bucharest goes calamitously pear shaped! Needless to say, nothing is quite as it seems, and their enjoyably rumbustious, helter skelter, increasingly bloody escapades not infrequently provide a distracting squall of nerve-janglingly escapist thrills!
On an entirely more subjective, admittedly geeky note, I IMMEDIATELY recognised one of the dubbed voices, and after avidly scrutinizing the end credits I happily noted that the film was ADR'd in Rome!!! So, I was right, Arcady's 'Break of Dawn' has authentic Euro-crime bona fides!!! Granted, no forgotten action masterpiece, the occasionally shaky dubbing precludes that, but the beautiful Romanian locations are quite lovely, and deadly sniper, Werner's (Said Taghmaoui) excitable, daredevil mania proves infectious, and his introspective partner, the handsome, brooding Adrien (Richard Berry) is an amiably Stoic counterpart, so I'm quite sure a few fans of EuropaCorp/Olivier Megaton's escapist ouvre will dig this unfairly neglected shoot 'em up. I went into this one blind, and had a righteous B-Movie blast, one sincerely hopes others may be similarly beguiled!
