Film Review: Point Blank (2010)

The one and only reason Hollywood buys up the remake rights to foreign films such as L'appartement, The Departed, Cell 211, Lake Mungo and this one is that they all have rock solid scripts. These are films that start with clever, original concepts and carry through with polished, smart scriptwriting. Hollywood is, in effect, buying the blueprints for success. This begs the eternal question of why filmmakers outside the U.S. seem to be so much better at coming up with original ideas for films. The answer is money.

In lieu of creativity Hollywood has money. A film such as Cowboys & Aliens uses pricey stars, expensive sfx, and wall-to-wall advertising to put bums in seats. And all that money couldn't buy a concept that was as good as most old Star Trek episodes. It's as though the studio was trying to bribe the audience to come to the cinema. Elsewhere, however, filmmakers can't sell sizzle, they have to sell steak. That means coming up with a concept and script that's so compelling it stands out from the background noise of the Hollywood hype machine. A Spanish or French filmmaker can't go to local production company with a weak idea and say that the final film will succeed if only they fork over north of $100m on stars and marketing. It's not going to happen. They need a concept that works no matter how low the budget.

And this brings me to Point Blank, a nearly flawless French thriller that wastes not a second of screen time. Without going spoiler-crazy I'll just say that it's about a hospital orderly played by Gilles Lellouche (previously seen in Chamber of Death) who is forced to remove an injured criminal from the hospital he works in. Things go badly wrong, of course, and the balance of the film's lean 84-minute running time is spent in chases, fights, hairbreadth escapes and the unraveling of a conspiracy and a coverup. In other words, everything you want in a thriller, only without big stars, over-the-top (and expensive) action sequences, and a saturation ad campaign that gives away all the best bits.

Gilles Lellouche is excellent as the orderly who finds himself running for his life. The script doesn't have him be unbelievably resourceful or tough, just desperate and determined. Roschdy Zem, France's go-to tough guy actor, plays the injured and hunted criminal and he brings a lot of presence to the role. The only problem I have with the film is the title. Why confuse your film with a 1960s classic? That's the only unoriginal idea in the whole film.

Film Review: Cell 211 (2011)

I so looked forward to this film. It's high concept from the word go: a new prison guard named Juan, still in civvies, gets caught up in a prison riot in the wing housing the worst of the worst. Once the prisoners take control of the wing Juan has to convince the prisoners that he's a newly arrived convict. To add to his problems his pregnant wife on the outside is trying to contact him and the prisoners have a corrupt guard who's leaking them information.

With a story idea this good it's no surprise Hollywood grabbed the remake rights in record time. I have a sneaky feeling they might do a better job than the Spanish original. Cell 211 is good, but it just doesn't live up to its clever premise. The first problem is that Juan becomes the right hand man of Malmadre, the prison's daddy, in no time flat. Although this bond allows for some plot complications and keeps Juan at the centre of the action, it just defies belief. Malmadre is supposed to be tougher than beef jerky left out in the sun, and yet he bonds with weedy, middle-class Juan in what seems like a matter of minutes.

With equal rapidity Juan begins to sympathize with the prisoners, who face brutal conditions and, on occasion, brutal guards. This Stockholm syndrome part of the story is an OK idea but it's handled in a pretty obvious way and it's questionable how much sympathy we feel for these prisoners. The final act of the film is especially disappointing. A death that takes place outside the prison removes Juan's motivation for hiding his identity, and Malmadre faces an attack on his top dog position in the prison that isn't setup at all well. These two plot holes left me applauding the film for its original concept, but wondering why they couldn't do a better job with the execution. So much of the film's tension ends up being frittered away because the plot simply asks us to suspend our disbelief too often.