Secrets of State (2008)

Pretty Good

Excellent but underrated film

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

What is bluntly visible in this French film is the American look. Actually it is not only the look - the whole approach taken by the film starting with its story and I dare say with its ideology, going through the rapid pace and crisp editing style and ending with the style of acting is borrowed from the American 'war on terror' movies. We even have some kind of a French equivalent of the CIA headquarters in this film. The most amazing things is however that the combination works. Philippe Haim is a talented director and his 'Secret Defense' is a good American thriller even if it is acted in French.Recruiting a young and sexy woman who finds herself in some kind of distress and turning her into a spy is a theme that we have already met in the classical Nikita, and original French film turned into an American movie and than successful TV series. The world of Secret Defense is however today's France and Middle East, and a parallel thread develops the background of an abused criminal who falls of dark side of the war on terror. The paths of the two characters are to meet inexorably, and we know it from almost from the beginning. The smart and unfortunately true idea of the script is that both the good girl and the bad guy are victims, paws, foot soldiers in war machines that confront each other and eventually crush everybody who falls under their wheels.The story has logic and the development of the main character played by Vahina Giocante is credible and does not lack an unexpected dose of sensitivity. There is one moment only when the accumulation of coincidences seemed to me to be hard to believe, but otherwise the story line and the excellent acting, the exact rendering of the various environments and the pace of action built upon interleaved threads contribute all to the good quality of a film that has an American look, and this time I am writing this appreciation on its positive meaning.

Contains spoilers. This movie is not very french at all. It is a rather poor attempt to transfer the ideology of some US-Secret-Service-flicks to french cinema. The movie consists of a mechanical subsequence of disgusting out-of-law practices of some secret-service-maniacs and some crazy guys that are not any better than the Secret-Service guys. The director tries hard to convince the viewer, that things work that way in reality and that its good that way, i.e. co-workers can be tortured any time just because of their religion - you never know. Women are shown as sexual objects and abuse is not only part of the game but it is the game. What makes this movie disgusting is that the directors don't crititze thiese practices, but they advertise it. They show what they think - their own narrow-minded fear driven moral.Plot is poor too: The movie starts with a girl that doesn't pass an exam at university and is then consoled by another student. Surprise surprise, the co-student is an undercover recruiter and his boss blackmails the girl into becoming an agent (as a student she earned her money as a prostitute). She then has to get into sexual intercourse with a terrorist to find out about his plans to release Vx-Gas in Paris. The second storyline is about a french guy that has to deal with drugs to finance his mothers apartment. He is caught and brought to prison. To avoid sexual intercourse with other inmates he is forced to join the local islamistic-group in prison and gets radicalized by them (some hugs, a bit of meat and some isolation do the job). He is picked by the terrorist to be the one to release the Vx-Gas in the metro of Paris. After some luggage swapping in some airports the girl stops the guy in the metro and the ending credits say: Since 2001 french intelligence could prevent 15 attacks in France.

The filmmaker Philippe Haim obviously likes Ridley and Tony Scott and with Secret Defense he delivers a nice try. The problem: he keeps too much to the surface.Secret Defense has the pace of a Tony Scott production but lacks the depth of character of other movies in the genre like f.e. Syriana. Recruiting a prostitute/student and turning her into a top agent in a matter of (movie) minutes takes some skills. Vahina Giocante sure is pretty (and she was perfect in Lila Dit Ca) but she never gets the chance to deliver a convincing personality (nor do most of the other actors). Half an hour more would have helped the story a lot. The question of course remains: would Haim have been able to fill it accordingly?But its not just that. The story is too flat, has too many clichés chasing each other and most characters are mainly one dimensional.Which doesn't mean Secret Defense doesn't deliver. If you like your spy stories to be more like action movies you're in for a treat. A touch of Bourne and Bruce Willis, a bomb here, a sexy agent there. Not bad at all. Just nothing like the real thing.

Right, I think the first issue is with the editing, pace was roughly there but it just seemed to stutter in places and when most of the actors seem to have come straight out of stage school the pace really needs to be right on the button(compare and contrast with the UK TV drama, Spooks).The story was weak and watered down, too many jumps without any suggestion, a poor script and direction also.Thirdly the female lead, Vahina Giocante, really should have been shown the door after the first week, too much overacting for me, I've seen comedians act better. However I haven't seen any of her other stuff though so it could have been just a duff one for her.Simon Abkarian has played measured bad guys before and did pretty well but I'm afraid that poor old Gérard Lanvin just didn't have enough script to go on, they spent too much time on the Martyr when they could have worked more on his character.Sorry I really had high hopes for this and really wanted to like it, I even watched it twice to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but remember this is my opinion I'm sure others will love it. they tried to take the Spooks concept and do a French big budget movie, perhaps they should have got a script re-write and got Mathieu Kassovitz to direct.