David Oelhoffen’s last film, which played in competition in Venice in 2014, was called “Far From Men,” but was characterized by a lean, craggy, proto-Western narrative that metaphorically lashed its two stars, Viggo Mortensen and Reda Kateb, close together for the duration. By contrast, his newest feature, which also landed a competition slot in Venice, has the English title “Close Enemies” but keeps its tussling main characters — again each on opposite sides of the law, and this time played by Kateb and Matthias Schoenaerts — far apart for most of the running time.
That’s an irony it would be easy to dismiss if it didn’t also speak to this film’s fatal flaw: While the frictive tension is palpable between Schoenaerts’ bulked-up, doggedly loyal drug runner and Kateb’s soulfully buttoned-down, conflicted cop in their few scenes together, for the most part, their destinies run in frustrating parallel, never...
That’s an irony it would be easy to dismiss if it didn’t also speak to this film’s fatal flaw: While the frictive tension is palpable between Schoenaerts’ bulked-up, doggedly loyal drug runner and Kateb’s soulfully buttoned-down, conflicted cop in their few scenes together, for the most part, their destinies run in frustrating parallel, never...
- 9/2/2018
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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