Reviews

**SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD**

I don't often write movie reviews. But today, I feel compelled to.

I was dismayed by the previous installment, Quantum of Solace, which was an obvious copycat of the Jason Bourne flicks. It was painful to watch with its shaky camera-work, stroboscopic editing and incomprehensible storyline (I had the feeling the producers decided the plot was something accessory). Actually, the same thing can be said of most action thrillers churned out by Hollywood nowadays: just one action scene after the other, without any plot, let alone any depth whatsoever; they're just disposable products for the average moviegoer more interested in eating his pop-corn or answering his cellphone during the screening than in following a storyline worthy of the name. Typical of the dumbing down of today's society.

In stark contrast, Skyfall is the Bond movie I had been waiting for for ages. It stays true to the Bond mythos while daringly breaking new ground never seen before in Bond flicks. A more realistic plot drawing its roots in today's headlines. For the first time, a Bond flick has noticeable political thriller overtones. Settings remarkable for their lack of glamor, at least in the second half. A woman in her 70s as both "the Bond girl" and a motherly figure to Bond. Smarter dialog with more depth, nevertheless with the odd typical Bond one-liner. Clever editing and beautiful photography, perhaps the most beautiful in the Bond series. Memorable performances, especially from Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes. Perhaps for the first time in the Bond franchise (with the notable exception of Timothy Dalton), the characters are fully-fleshed and NOT mere cardboard cutouts. I really hope we'll see in the next movie more of Fiennes' no-nonsense character, deft at playing power games in the corridors of high government (an ambiguous character reminiscent of the bad guys of Ken Loach's "Hidden Agenda"). The relationship between Bond and M is also delved into with brilliance.

As a longtime Bond fan who's always considered Timothy Dalton's rendering of Bond as the most hard-edged and closest to Ian Fleming's depiction of 007, I consider Skyfall to be the most mature, the most adult-oriented, the most beautifully crafted Bond movie. But just like Timothy Dalton's Bond didn't appeal to mainstream audiences, I fear Skyfall is too serious and too smart for the average moviegoer. I am concerned the producers might decide for the next installment to go back to the campy/light-hearted tone of the Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan eras that was more crowd-pleasing.

The infallible superman Bond with no physical nor psychological flaws whatsoever is something of the past. Many people will disagree with me, but Skyfall should be the mold for the Bond movies of the future.

Je viens de voir le film. Je n'ai pu le voir que maintenant car il n'était jamais passé dans la ville de Province où j'habite et j'ai dû attendre de pouvoir venir à Paris et le voir en urgence dans le dernier cinéma de Paris intra-muros où il est encore diffusé ! J'étais impatient de le voir depuis des mois. Je m'attendais à du grand Kassovitz... et j'ai eu droit à du très grand Kassovitz ! J'étais au courant des polémiques que le film avait suscitées à sa sortie : certains acteurs du drame d'Ouvéa (dont certains anciens du GIGN ayant participé à l'assaut) affirmaient que le film ne reflétait pas fidèlement certains aspects des évènements qu'il relate. N'étant pas un expert sur le sujet dans ses détails, je ne puis en juger. Je pense cependant que le film est dans ses grandes lignes fidèle à la réalité historique d'après les reportages et articles que j'avais lus sur le drame d'Ouvéa.

Les critiques qu'on a beaucoup entendues à l'encontre du film à sa sortie sont infondées à mon sens. Je n'ai pas trouvé le film anti-militariste ni manichéen du tout, mais bien au contraire tout en nuances dans son évocation des différents protagonistes, Kanaks comme militaires. Et Mathieu Kassovitz ne glorifie pas outrancièrement Philippe Legorjus, puisqu'il le montre farouchement opposé à l'assaut militaire et déchiré entre ses devoirs envers ses hommes du GIGN (qu'il doit mener à l'assaut afin de libérer leurs camarades pris en otages) et sa parole envers les ravisseurs kanaks qu'il veut ramener à la raison afin d'éviter un bain de sang. Legorjus est écartelé entre ses responsabilités d'officier envers les hommes de son unité et sa bonne volonté d'homme de dialogue vis-à-vis des Kanaks, et au final il subira la rancoeur et le rejet des deux camps. Philippe Legorjus apparaît alors plutôt comme une figure tragique, dépassée par les événements et les enjeux politiques, malgré tous ses efforts et sa bonne volonté pour éviter l'affrontement.

Mathieu Kassovitz, ses acteurs (y compris les non-professionnels) et son équipe sont remarquables tout au long du film : scénario, dialogues, interprétation, mise en scène, photo, effets spéciaux (à la fois subtils et spectaculaires), tout concourt à un moment de cinéma très mémorable. L'assaut final est magistralement "chorégraphié" et filmé, c'est l'une des scènes de guerre les plus spectaculaires et les plus hallucinantes de réalisme que j'aie jamais vues : le chaos, la confusion, la peur et la tension sont très bien ressenties et le spectateur est littéralement plongé au coeur de l'action.

Mon seul bémol au film : l'assaut de la grotte, qui, il me semble, a duré près de sept heures dans la réalité, est trop court et j'aurais aimé que cette séquence dure bien plus longtemps.

Je ne comprends vraiment pas pourquoi le film a fait un flop en France. Il y a peut-être eu la forte concurrence inattendue d'Intouchables, film au ton beaucoup plus léger et donc plus à même de plaire au grand public. Mais peut-être aussi que les médias et critiques, en pleine période électorale, n'ont pas voulu faire l'éloge d'une oeuvre qui donne une image plutôt négative du gouvernement (de droite) de l'époque, mais ce n'est qu'une spéculation.

C'est bien dommage, car ce film nous prouve que Mathieu Kassovitz est en très grande forme ! Puisse-t-il renouer à l'avenir avec le succès commercial, il le mérite amplement.

We all know the plot of Rocky IV is awfully thin (Soviet boxer comes to USA. Soviet boxer kills Rocky's friend. Rocky goes to Soviet Union to avenge aforementioned friend. End of script). And this movie has very little dialog. Granted. This movie is actually a 90-minute music video. Absolutely. And it's full of stereotypes and clichés on the USSR and Russians etc. Logically, this movie is total trash, and by far the worst Rocky movie.

And you know what? Rocky IV is by far my favorite Rocky movie, and one of my all-time fave films. I know this defies all reason, but I'll tell why.

I'm a huge Stallone fan, and once again Sly remarkably directed and acted in this fourth installment of the Rocky saga; the others actors sincerely and convincingly played their parts as well; the editing is impressive too. But the real star of the movie is in fact one you certainly didn't expect.

As I said above, Rocky IV is a one-hour-and-a-half music video, and its real wonder is actually soundtrack author Vince DiCola. As much as I love and respect Bill Conti's work on all other Rocky movies, I must say that in my mind, DiCola's score on this movie surpassed Conti's and is the "true", the "ultimate" Rocky soundtrack.

DiCola managed to capture the essence of Rocky, i.e. overcoming one's fears, fighting against the odds, perseverance in the face of adversity etc. I'm referring especially to "Training Montage" and "Heart's on Fire" (wonderfully sung by John Cafferty): more than any other piece of music I've heard in my life, Vince DiCola's tunes are incredibly inspiring, unbelievably motivating... Just listen to them, they'll pump you up like nothing else. Whatever your occupation is (physical or intellectual), they'll instantly put you on a high and in the right mindset to achieve your goal. DiCola's music is so powerful, combined with the impressive editing of the training scenes, I would even be tempted to say it has a near-magical power to motivate you. It's definitely the ultimate inspirational music.

And the score in the rest of the film, especially "War" during the final fight, is equally terrific. It makes you root for Rocky from the beginning to the end and feel his emotions.

Stallone often had remarkable soundtracks for his movies (e.g. those by Jerry Goldsmith for the Rambo saga) and it's a shame and incomprehensible that DiCola wrote very few film scores (same for John Cafferty, why isn't he more famous?). I acknowledge that the first time I saw Rocky IV, I hated Vince DiCola's music because it was so different from Bill Conti's, but after watching the movie again, I came to adore it. In 1985, it was a score ahead of its time, and more than twenty years later, it still is. It hasn't lost an ounce of its power. Is it humanly possible to compose a more motivating soundtrack?

Watch (and above all, listen to) Rocky IV from this perspective and you'll understand why there are so many people who love it.

(WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD) I'd like to vindicate this movie, since many people seem to have disliked it. And I'll tell you why: this is one of the best spy movies I've ever seen. I'm no expert about the world of espionage, but according to what I've learnt about real-life spooks, this movie is based on reality in many aspects.

The plot is based on operations conducted by the real-life French spy agency (the DGSE) that really occurred: the bomb attacks on a German weapons trafficker in the 1950s who was supplying rebels in the Algerian War of Independence, and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, a ship owned by the environmental organization Greenpeace in 1985 in Auckland, New Zealand. In the latter case, just like in the movie, a French female spy infiltrated Greenpeace and stole plans of the ship to be bombed, and the actual bombing was carried out by French "nageurs de combat" (combat divers, more or less the French equivalent of Navy Seals), some of them posing as a couple of Swiss tourists during their stay in New Zealand.

For what I know about the subject, the movie authentically depicts the modus operandi of real-life field agents, e.g. George (Vincent Cassel) avoiding being seen with his contact Tony (Eric Savin) during the operation in Casablanca; spy agencies hiring foreign mercenaries to do their deniable ops (i.e. dirty jobs) to make sure such ops will be deniable if discovered; agents being betrayed by their own hierarchy for reasons of "higher national interest"; the dirty tricks spy agencies of yet allied countries do to each other; and more specifically to the DGSE, the rivalry between the military officers (represented by Cassel, Bellucci and the Colonel played by Andre Dussollier) and the civilian technocrats (represented by the no-name black-haired cigarette-smoking guy in his early forties played by Bruno Todeschini), the former ones having lost control of the agency to the latter over the years (the DGSE was originally run by the French military).

Many people found this movie boring, but that's because the lives of real spies are exactly like that! The director stated that he wanted to depict accurately the state of mind of real-life field agents (i.e. their solitude, the fear they perpetually feel etc.) and he has exactly achieved that, and his movie must be seen more as a documentary look on real spies, not as a James Bond/Jason Bourne-like action thriller. Those Hollywood movies aren't even remotely true to the real world of espionage. Even the British TV spy show "Spooks" seems unrealistic in comparison with this movie.

I hope I have given some facts that will give a clearer perspective to some viewers, in order to better appreciate "Agents Secrets", which may indeed seem a bit difficult to understand for those who are unaware of the real-life background it is based on. And on a purely cinematographic level, this movie offers brilliant writing, directing, editing and acting. Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci convincingly portray two spies having to pose as a couple and always working professionally during their mission, i.e. they're always careful never to allow an ounce of sexuality in their relationship. This is all the more remarkable acting, as they were actually already married in real-life at the time of the shooting!

A definitely memorable movie.