A Isca

It starts as a funny film about young people. But soon it will be disturbing and I think this is because there is no one to identify with. The real violence and the incompetence is hard to stand but as far as the film tells its story the more convincing it will be. It´s an important discussion about gold, commercials and peoples weakness against it. This is not a reassuring film and it will keep you awake !

Björn Landström, Lerdala Sweden

This movie inspired from actual events reminds me another film just released; guess what: 24 JOURS, the story of the abduction, torture and killing of Ilan Allimi, also a true event occurred in 2006. The schemes are very alike but not filmed in the same way. The Alexandre Arcady film is more tense, more suspenseful. And that doesn't reduce the efficiency of the Tavernier's piece of work.

I like both. They are just made in two different ways.

That's all.

More than eighteen years are between the two of them.

the best would be to watch them both one after the other, to compare at the best. A very interesting experience.

In Paris, the eighteen year-old Nathalie Magnan (Marie Gillain) works in a clothing store during the day and escorts successful men in a nightclub in the night. Nathalie lives with her boyfriend Eric (Olivier Sitruk) and his moronic friend Bruno (Bruno Putzulu) in an apartment she rents. Eric dreams on traveling to the United States with Nathalie to open their on business but his father does not finance him. Eric plots a scheme with Bruno, Nathalie and her friend Patricia (Clotilde Courau) to raise money. They should go with their costumers to their apartments and once inside the apartment, they should the door open so that they could rob the apartment. Things do not work well and Patricia decides to give up and not participate in the heists. But when their plan goes wrong, Eric and Bruno have to kill their victim.

"L'appât" is a French movie by Bertrand Tavenier that show an alienated youth in France that thinks in getting easy money despite killing their victims. The impressive story seems to be very realistic and when I saw it for the first time in the 90's, I was scared with the behavior of Nathalie, Eric and Bruno. Now the violence has increased worldwide and the impact of the murders reduces, but anyway, "L'appât" is still a great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Isca" ("The Bait")

Great movie by Bertrand Tavernier. He is playing with the idea of a classical American thriller, which the male protagonists admire so much, as well as they look for the "American dream" in a Paris in crisis behind its "charmant" appearance.

Tavernier's intention is more realistic and, as life, less perfect than a classical script (curiously, the film is based in real facts). That's why we don't know many times where the film is going. But Tavernier employs that time to show us details of the life of very well-built characters. Specially good is the acting of the young woman.

Sad (but interesting!) impression in the end of the characters' "career". As a result of that, we have the impression of a not very healthy society, and without any need to insist by Tavernier during the movie. I recommend it, I feel it is even a bit underrated here.

Tavernier has done better stuff than this one, to start with. The plot is easily understood: two dimwitted small crime adolescence guys want to make money. They aren't able to plan anything beyond having their petite amie of Lolita-type chatting up seemingly rich older guys in order to gain access to their flats and rob them. They are dimwitted enough to not research the locations orderly and even have no plan for what to do exactly once access has been obtained. No doubt, everything will end up in some horrible mess.

Tavernier wouldn't be Tavernier if he couldn't at least extract some deep psychological insight into the psyche of the heroes. So I stayed tuned and not just walked out. The psychological dissection of the bait, the Lolita v2.0, kept me in. She's friendly, hopelessly in love with one of the two friends in crime (because he is good-looking, as she once says). To me she's a product of our times, and an example of superficiality, a complete emotional emptiness that she can only try to fill with the guys and luxury. I think it is no spoiler to say that she sits emotionless in front of some cartoon video clips while her friends torture one of the victims. She doesn't question the torture at all, plugs ear-buds not to hear the screams instead. It has taken me to observe her. She is not cruel at all. Over time it turns out that she is principally emotionally completely detached from reality. In case you watch the movie, listen to her last line in the movie. I was devastated.