The Last Deadly Mission (2008)

the audience applauded

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Former cop Olivier Marchal presents us with a bleak picture of French cop on the end of the line. While things looked almost hopeless for the main character in his previous directorial work, 36, here they are utterly hopeless.We meet Louis, a completely alcoholic cop who downs a bottle of whiskey a day, as he in a drunken stupor hijacks a bus full of people so that the bus driver can drive him home. Internal affairs gives him a break and assigns him to answer phones during night duty. Louis used to date one of the IA officers. He's in the middle of a serial killer investigation; the killer brutally rapes and kills women in their home. Even though he's off the case, Louis can't let go and continues to investigate. In fact, he solves the case and with his partner orchestrates a fantastically botched operation to apprehend the killer. This time around he's kicked off the force.A parallel story involves a pregnant woman whose parents were killed 25 years ago. The killer, now an old religious man, is about to be paroled. She doesn't believe in his rehabilitation. It's only late in the film that we find out how this story connects to the main story. It was Louis who put the killer in jail. She now contacts Louis to inform him that the killer is out. And sure enough, the killer stalks and threatens the woman. Louis who at this point has nothing to lose decides to take on his last, personal, and very deadly mission with the help of a MR-73 a gun that belongs to his partner.We are told that this is movie is based on real events and it would be interesting to find out what aspect of it is true. This seems to be a very personal movie for Marchal. Once again, as in 36, we are exposed not to the glamorous world of law enforcement but all the nastiness and corruption. We find out what drove Louis to alcoholism, a car accident left his wife in a semi-vegetative state and he has to take care of her. Marchal presents us a very realistic picture of the police force, where ego and testosterone make for a terrible combination. These cops rarely work as partners preferring to be each others' antagonists.The movie is entertaining to see but there is a lot of room for improvement. Several parts of the pregnant woman's story are superfluous. A lot could have been improved via editing to make the movie shorter, tighter, to present these two stories in a more coherent and interesting way. There's only so much fun in watching a slow-mo train wreck unfold and Louis' life is an absolute wreck. I like Marchal's direction, it has a lot of style but is paced too slowly, this movie is more than 2 hours long and you feel every minute of it. I would have liked to see the serial killer story get more prominence, it ends too soon, meanwhile the woman's story is too drawn out, starting too early.

Olivier Marchal kept his devotees waiting for four years after the great 36, Quai des Orfevres so clearly the main question is, was MR 73 worth the wait. The answer has to be yes. There are, inevitably, overtones from other movies; the detective searching for a serial killer whilst his own wife remains comatose is straight out of The First Deadly Sin in which Sinatra was the cop and Faye Dunaway the comatose wife. Elsewhere we are on newer ground. Where Sinatra's wife had a conventional illness Auteuil's was in a car crash for which he feels such guilt that he is burnt-out, washed-up and a booze hound. Marchal weaves two stories seamlessly - the current serial killer and the one awaiting release from prison, whilst his own wife, Catherine scores heavily as Auteuil's sympathetic boss. Try not to miss it

This movie should not be rated for its plot, or the good guys vs bad guys, or any other standard used to rate normal movies. This movie is an homage. An homage to the suffering, the courage and the lives of the real people on which the story is based.Every aspect of this film breathes with the same deep respect for what happened. The reality it brings into the room takes your breath away... You cannot watch this movie and escape its grasp.Daniel Auteuil and everyone else in the cast did their jobs with dignity. They played their roles the way they should be played and the aftertaste is bitter... but filled with reverence.Watch this movie without reading the plot. Let it happen to you, expect nothing and allow yourself to care.I'm sure you'll agree; 10 out of 10. Easily.

I was really thrilled by "36 Quai Des Orfèvres" (aka Department 36) ... for once you could feel a real policeman tale by an ex-cop. I am slightly disgusted by MR 73. I agree with the first comments I read on IMDb. The film is bleak, spooky, desperate and after the introductory minutes no one wants to laugh anymore. What's more, the ideology under the images is debatable to say the least. Criminals stay criminals whatever the amount of redeeming they show off.If they're given a conditional release after 20 years of prison, kill them before they can commit a new murder ! Good cops stay good cops, whatever the amount of drinking and "petty demeanors" such as high-jacking a bus for example they can be responsible of. Auteuil plays an ex-good cop: he drinks like a fish, high-jacks a bus to get back home with his policeman gun and is retrograded as a heavy sentence to another service of Marseille's police ! he steals crucial evidences, acts as the local Zorro with a fellow policeman who finds death in the process in company of the serial killer ... and he's given the retirement sack (with 70 % of wages)...only because the criminal himself (credibility rebuke)happens to be the son of a high rank officer of the Police. In what Republic are we supposed to live ? This film is certainly not a defense and illustration of the glorious french police corp, rather the contrary. I give a 7 though, for the quality of filming and interpretation.