Paris Countdown (2013)

Simply A Masterpiece

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Blistering performances.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Time is of essence. And things you've done in the past, might catch up to you. Something that is very true here. And it doesn't even matter if you had no choice or saying in the matter. What matters is the end result. And if someone doesn't like that, you might expect that other person to hold you responsible. Especially if that other person is a mean criminal being.Not the most original main idea, but the main actors convey their emotions and relationship pretty good, most of the time. This is a pretty decent thriller that has a good amount of suspension that will keep you busy and entertained most of the time, if you let it.

This is French B-list stuff: overplotted, undercharacterized. In style, it seems to be aiming at a Hong-Kong shootemup look and feel as applied to a modern, globalised, cool Paris-by-night. The French title means something like "daylight can wait", which makes more sense, since the film takes place over one very long, very action-packed, high-body-count night, with the opening sequence taking place in the blinding sunshine of a Mexican desert (Spain apparently standing in, per the credits) and the closing sequence in the pale dawn.The actors (the women are completely negligible sources of overacted hysteria)are all journeymen from film and TV. They are talented and, as always, have more expressive and care-worn faces than their American counterparts. They are supposed to be playing out, in middle age, the final stages of a lifelong bromance. The problem is that the screenplay doesn't show this so much as it tells it through stagey pieces of dialogue ("remember how great it was?", "remember how messed up we were?", and so forth). Given the desperate straits into which they are thrown, with their nemesis psyopathic enemy out to kill them as violently as possible, their odd-couple banter comes across as contrived. It is to the actors' credit that there are flashes of spontaneity and rapport despite the best efforts of the screenwriter/director.Give credit for these moments, for an effectively creepy evocation of Paris nightlife, for the high-color-saturation direct video (some great traveling shots along some uniconic Paris boulevards), and for a great sequence involving a speedboat bobbing in the middle of the Seine. As for the blood-and-gore, well, the Hong Kong guys do it better.

I expected a little more from this crime movie, starring Olivier Marchal. We find here the usual and predictable scheme of friendship among hoods and against gang wars. I have seen better, but it remains gripping and riveting for several scenes. A very violent one and shot in slow motion gunfight, as was STATE OF GRACE, starring Sean Penn, back in 1990. Olivier Marchal is excellent, so is Gamblin. Carlo Brandt, as usual, gives also here a terrific performance as a cold blooded killer. Francis Renaud is in the run too. Both are famous supporting actors for the french crime movie industry. The ending saves the film, but that's only my own opinion.

A couple of ageing club owners start to have a night from hell when a vicious criminal from their past is released from jail and wants vengeance for their role in his capture.Paris Countdown is a crime thriller that could be described as an exercise in style over substance. To be honest, generally speaking I don't mind this very much as cinematic style is a very seductive thing. In the case of this movie though, while the visual presentation is very slick indeed, the story isn't all that involving. In fact, it's a fairly clichéd affair on the whole, with lots of typical crime characters and settings involved in a plot that doesn't hold any surprises for those who have seen many films from this genre. It sometimes drags a little too and it's always welcome when the action and thrills kick in, which wasn't often enough in my view. Still, it looks pretty good and has pretty impressive cinematography which often makes good use of its Paris setting. There is also a very well executed slow-motion shoot-out in a hallway – more of this inventiveness would have been very welcome. The soundtrack is, typically for a Euro crime film, a selection of pounding clubland tunes – nothing wrong with that of course but, again, nothing new.So there is plenty of style to burn here but it's not especially inspired.