realbambax

I long for the time when French movies had a ** plot ** and some acting. This has neither. The story is utterly predictable from the start, it's just a long string of clichés put one after the other. Rest assured no actors were harmed in the process because none were used.

The very first scene actually tells it all: we see a young engineer fighting a more senior analyst on the interpretation of a recording at the BEA (French equivalent for the NTSB). We understand that the young guy is up against the system and from there it's child's play to unravel the whole "story", if you can call it that. (Basically, it's a riff on Boeing's MCAS problems, transposed in a fictitious European company named "Atrian".)

There are numerous inconsistencies and weaknesses. Characters of similar professional level teach one another things the other certainly knows already: this is a cheap exposition trick that's forgivable if done just once, but extremely annoying if done repeatedly. For a major crash involving 300 victims, there is just one investigator (!!) and all he has to work with is the output from the CVR. There is no mention of the FDR whatsoever, which would immediately point to the real cause of the accident (and therefore, one presumes, ruin the suspense?) And to fuel the conflict of interest, the film presumes planes are certified by the BEA. They aren't. The BEA only analyses crashes. Certification is done by the DGAC (Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile), a completely different agency.

This is no thriller because all developments are obvious from the first 5 minutes onwards. That it's even a movie is debatable since there is no plot, no acting and not even decent photography.

What so many French movies lack in storytelling, they make up in humor, irony and self-deprecation. This one takes itself seriously, and it really shouldn't. It never found an audience and was an utter commercial failure when it came out in 1994. To this day, the director seems to think "the press" was responsible. Well, no: the reason it failed is that there is no plot, characters and scenes are utter clichés, cinematography is uninspired and even sound design is poor.

It is utterly vulgar in nature, and sexist. A hooker is shown naked during several long shots, but when the male main character gets up from bed after sex, he wears boxers!

It's also long and slow. Actors were apparently told to insert random silences in their dialogue, sometimes between words, to sound deep? But that's not deep, it's dumb.

Utter waste of time.

This is bad. Poor acting, bad writing, confusing editing, uninteresting and rambling subplots. And a betrayal of the original documentary.

Colin Firth is unbelievable as an American (or former Marine). Juliette Binoche can't act, in English or French. The actor playing Denis Poncet doesn't speak French fluently, and it's ridiculous and very distracting.

All kids characters are unlikable, unrelatable. Whatever happens in Germany is boring as hell and, I think, irrelevant to the story.

I don't understand the point of making this when the original documentary was so good and well received. This is a complete and utter waste of time.