Effraction

This is the kind of dud which passes for thriller !Directing is awful,acting is either ludicrous(Villeret) or totally listless (Jobert and Cremer)

Jacques Villeret is a gangster on the lam ;he has killed all his mates and now he takes hostages.His swagger is priceless:when he's wearing his wig,he resembles Obelix,complete with moustache and paunch,and when he takes off his disguise,he looks like a caricature of the killer-with-frames-of -mind-who -is not-that-much-wicked-after-all.His hostages are people who have style:Cremer is a mathematician and Jobert a doctor:their love story is not unlike the ones we saw in the disaster movies of the seventies,perhaps even more vapid ,if it's possible.

A pox on it.

this is a good thriller: it shows how was our way of living in a deep part of France in the early 80.the life at that time was far more romantic that nowadays. Marlène Jobert is charming , Bruno Cremer is great and Jacques Villeret (who died in early 2005) shows how great actor can play multiple type of characters (in this movie, he is playing the bad which is not the character he was used to play). Of course the "action" side could not be compared to a "James Bond" but it gives time to appreciate the characters.Here are not gadgets, no sophisticated weapons but just the life people used to live at that time in South part of France. Beyond that, a wonderful jazzy piano soundtrack from Maurice Vander adds a romantic feeling to that movie.

Jacques Villeret plays an obnoxious, annoying criminal, who panics during a heist and kills everyone in his sight. He escapes, travels around, rests in an hotel, gets discovered, takes hostages, escapes again.

I had some hopes of this unknown crime film with this intriguing title. But the first minutes I was sure I was watching a comedy. This was also influenced by the appearance of Jacques Villeret, the comedy hero of Diner des Cons, and the over the top acting (and wigs and fake mustaches) in the heist scene. But, it wasn't. It was a serious crime film.

I think it was meant as an artistic interpretation of a crime novel from Francis Ryck. And there are a couple of slightly interesting scenes, especially in the first part. The conversation with the waiter in the middle of the night, the bizarre dance of an old lady in a bar, the conversation with a whore. The confused and violent character of Valentin is surprisingly well acted by Villeret ('I like to have a room… with a view at the sea.' 'But there is no sea here, sir.'). Marlene Jobert and Bruno Cremer are both decent as well.

But all in all, I guess it isn't interesting enough for a whole film. It's not gritty enough for being a serious crime film, it's not comical enough for being a black comedy, it's not psychological enough for being a portrait of a mad man. Bits and pieces, about 30, 40 minutes, are worthwhile. It reminded me a bit of the film Roberto Succo (2001, Cedric Kahn), which I found better in almost every aspect.

Effraction would be Daniel Duval's last directing endeavour (until his comeback in 2006, with his autobiographical film Le Temps des Porte-Plumes). In the meantime Duval was actor, specialized in playing dubious characters (for example his role as Szabo in TV drama Engranages), working with Tavernier, Ozon, Haneke, Marchal. He died two years ago. I rate this 6/10, mostly for trying.