Racer and the Jailbird

This movie completely lacks cohesion and I'm in agreement with a couple of other reviewers here who have said it's a shambles. Roskam worked magic with the marvellous Matthias Schoenaerts (who tried his damndest to make this work) in Bullhead and The Drop, but frankly this just failed. It sprawled itself over three "acts", the first of which was quite exciting and showed promise but that's where it stopped. The two hours plus running time felt like five.

Wait, I don't say that's not a good movie. No, only it did not reach the point I expected, especially after the trailer watching. This is a melodrama, not a crime film; or may I say a melodrama with some crime accents. You have here one of the best armored truck heist sequences ever. I don't remember a better scene since LE PACHA, back in 1968. It is a must see. For the rest, it is a pure melodrama in the line of Arthur Hiller's LOVE STORY or BOOBY DEERFIELD ( still around car races !!!). This movie is too long for my taste, but performances are amazing, as the directing. A strange film, indeed. Interesting but not what I waited for. Many things unexplained, especially the ending.

Very good Belgian romantic drama about a couple that, despite loving each other deeply, have a bad fate and are very different: he is a great robber (who does not have the best relationship with dogs) and she is a rich car racer (her background is less important than his in the film). Acting is excelent (Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos also do work well together), script is quite good and it is very well directed. However, the very depressing end, while not being bad, it is clearly below the excellent level of most of the movie development.

Taking risks makes some feel alive. Both Bibi and Gigi, a racecar driver and sophisticated thief, are the type. True to nature, they fall for each other on first sight and quickly dispense with the formalities. "Do not bring flowers," says Bibi. Not that she needed to warn him. Bibi and Gigi share a danger addiction. Distance feeds their adrenaline, and attraction. "Do not lie to me," warns Bibi, yet she cannot get enough of it. What attracts is also what tears apart. The poor one among them who fails to keep pace with the other, or who runs too far away! Please, I thought at the start, do not let Bibi rescue Gigi in a car at any point during the film. The more the premise of the film and the nature of the characters is revealed, the less one needs to worry about this. The Bibi/Gigi chemistry is palpable. The best part of the film is the tension between the main characters, waiting to see who is going to crack first. Matthias Schoenaerts (Gigi) is reunited with the director of Bullhead. Bullhead is darkly amazing, and it is where Schoenaerts achieved well deserved notoriety, but the duo did not repeat the magic here. More depth is needed to the plot, supporting characters, sound and cinematography. Seen at the Miami Film Festival.

Racer and the Jailbird is an absolutely infuriating film. It started off quite well, it's nicely shot and looks good, has good sound design, and the beginnings of a quite compelling plot. What's more the leads are brilliant, Adèle Exarchopoulos especially so (even when her character's arc begins to devolve). But of course, it doesn't last. Towards the end of the first chapter what had the potential to be quite an interesting plot point about Gigi's relationship with Bibi and robbery (maybe the cartoonish names should have been a warning) turns into just another "one last job"and things start steadily deteriorating. But the film still holds the potential to just be a simple fun melodrama, or maybe even to subvert cliche. But no, in what must have been a misguided attempt to do the latter, the film devolves into a gritty overwrought mess. It really is quite terrible.