The Nest

Dry, harsh, without concession. Nid de guêpes is a pure B-movie strongly inspired by Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13th, but directed with professionalism and a real personal style. After the unbalanced The brotherhood of the wolves and The crimson rivers, here comes the first real achievement in the new wave of French entertaining movies. Don't hesitate!

At last! Here comes a film where the French show the Americans how to make a good action-movie. And that without high-tech effects or a multi-million dollar (eh, euro) budget.

I never heard of this film anywhere, but the guy in the video store recommended it to me, so I checked it out... And, man, was it worth it!!! This film is the best action film I have seen for years. Not since Die Hard or Shiri have I enjoyed an action movie this much. As with most of these films the story isn't original and may be copied from other films, but so what? As long as it is done properly, so be it. And this film delivers. Non-stop action, realistic violence (meaning when someone catches a few bullets he/she stays down) and (the most important thing in an action film) good villains with absolutely no conscience. There is no exaggerated humour, no gags and no unbelievable gadgets. There was only one thing where I scratched my head: why do the terrorists give the others enough time to rearrange all the containers?

Bottom-line: if you hate these so called high-profile action films from Hollywood which want to be so über-cool (Bad Boys II anyone?) then check out this film. You will not regret it! 9/10

Watching THE NEST I was reminded in quite a few ways of DIE HARD, which I consider to be the archetypal action movie. Very pure of focus, very lean and taught and *incredibly* intense. It's been a long time since a movie kept me on the edge of my seat like this one.

The premise is very simple. A group of special forces soldiers are escorting a mafia head to trial when they're attacked by his men and take refuge in a warehouse. As luck would have it, a gang of thieves choose the same night to rob the same warehouse, and they get caught in the crossfire.

Once the groups of characters are introduced, it's not long before the bullets start flying... and flying, and flying and flying. It's almost non-stop action for the rest of the film, and easily outdoes HARD BOILED for bullet count. I'm sure some people will find this very boring, so if intense adrenalin-inducing action isn't one of your things then skip the rest of this review (and the film). The rest of you, skip the rest of this review and go rent/buy/acquire this film. Hollywood only wishes it could make an action film this pure or this exciting these days.

As regards purity (since I've mentioned it twice), this means that the film focusses on building intense action, and doesn't let itself get distracted with other concerns, except in a few cases. The characters are given just enough development to let us know who they are, and pretty much no back story. One character in particular seems like he must have a story to tell, but all we learn is that he was once a fireman. There was surely more to him than that, but it's kept a mystery. Maybe that's a good thing, but I'd have liked to know a little more. A few times the movie teases you into thinking there's going to be a twist, and you say to yourself "Ha, I see what's coming later", but the plot remains refreshingly twist-free. It doesn't need them, so it doesn't have them. Pure.

It's just a shame that Hollywood's marketing machinery has such an iron grip on the world's cinema distribution that junk like Alien vs Predator will be seen by millions of people, and a movie as good as THE NEST will remain inexplicably classed as "Indie" or "Arthouse", even in its home country.

Just finished watching Nid de Guepes, or the Nest, as it is translated. The beginning I found to be somewhat slow - there is very little dialogue until the sh@t starts to fly in the building. However, I found myself drawn to whether or not and more importantly who would make it out alive.

Overall, for an action movie, it was good - no hero machismo, no action stars . The one and only rescue attempt made (in the truck) is put to rest within a matter of seconds in a hail of bullets; something you don't see quite often in a typical Hollywood blockbuster.

There are no heroes, no guns for glory. It simply tells the story of a group of people, thrown into the same "merde", fighting to survive. Whatever remains of the bravado is quickly put to an end as you see how high the odds were stacked against them - the continuous legion of gunmen assaulting the factory in droves.

Not to mention Fares, switching from French, to Italian to English without missing a beat. Rrrroow.

A good flick

Well it's not a precinct and maybe assault is too much. But I'm talking about influence and it's obvious what the influences were. If not Carpenter than the western movies Carpenter was inspired by. But you don't have Cowboys and Indians here. You have different kind of guys, who try to get out (or is it in?).

A very well though of french thriller, that is very tense and has a lot of action to hold your attention. And while this has quite a few western influences (as I wrote above), I was expecting an American remake anytime soon, after the movie came out. It didn't happen though, so you have to watch this. Which is not a bad thing. Because the movie is quite good and you have quite a few french stars in it too.