Dobermann

Stylish, violent French thriller about some thoroughly unlikeable lowlife and the equally despicable policemen on their trail. In places, this film is original, funny and genuinely shocking, but there's not really enough here to offset the gun fetish.

Crazy and fun and psychotic. Jan Kounen's high-octane Dobermann is a graphic novel come to life. Expertly directed, shot and acted. Every character is pretty much certifiable, and they exist in a world that is truly bats**t crazy.

Anarchic, and freaking excellent.

People have compared Dobermann to Tarantino's stuff, but I think it's much more similar to Luc Besson's Leon / crossed with Baz Luhrmann's direction in the opening of Romeo & Juliet.

Great comic-book angles and poses, larger-than-life characters, comic-book violence, Prodigy soundtrack.. Brilliant stuff.

Very cool theme, and great CGI opening credits (worth a mention on their own). I couldn't work out why Tcheky Karyo says about 3/4 of his lines in accented English, but who cares.

It's uncomplicated, violent, stylish mayhem, and it's great.

Dobermann is a movie about losing control. And it is probably the most violent movie one can rent at the videoclub. The violence is raw and both the cops and thieves are psychos.

A lot of scenes are very strong. Like this one where a cop is eating his sandwich while watching a pimp beating a hooker...

Don't be fooled by people who say that this movie is a copycat of 'Natural Born Killer'. Such comments are sadly narrow-minded. Dobermann is a chef-d'oeuvre and does not relate to any other movie. It is indeed very stylish and does no try to lecture the spectator.

"Dobermann", effectively, is a movie with no live characters in it. Not one.

What it does have is walking cartoons. Two-dimensional and blatantly unbelievable ones (e.g the psycho preacher, straight out of a 60'ies spaghetti-western). That, and bloody mayhem!

The set-pieces, (a bank-robbery, a shoot-em-up in a nightclub and the final car-chase) are excellent for those who like their action-movies splattered with gore and a loud techno-track. Beware, though, there are stretches of boredom in between. Of special note is the grossly unpleasant scene where Christini tortures "Sonia"'s family. It includes a baby being thrown across the room, and later being given a hand-grenade as a toy. This didn't endear "Dobermann" to the Norwegian critics! It was not shown in Oslo as a result of the regional cinema-director considering the movie devoid of interest and much, much too violent.

Which it is.