Le convoyeur

Le Convoyeur (Cash truck) is one of those "minimalist French thriller" that will keep you in the edge of the seat for the entire movie. What the movie lacks in budget terms is compensated with the superb (and intense) acting for its main characters, especially Albert Dupontel (IRREVERSIBLE), a character you will not forget very soon.

Alexander, a really strange and disturbed man, starts working as a security guard for an armored trunk company. The universe surrounding him is truly unbelievable; just because is real.

We meet a bunch of lazy losers, which could be categorized as drug addicts, drunks, depressed, inept or nuts, and Alexander fits in all of them. To make matters more interesting; all of them are carrying guns with minimum training (one shoot a month) and earn a thousand Euros (about $ 1300) a month for transporting millions in cash.

It is easy to predict that under these circumstances, things could go REALLY WRONG.

After a while, we also realize that Alexander has his own agenda. He inquires about routes and events randomly. He even searches his co-workers lockers.

Without giving out more, lets say that Nicolas Boukhrief (the director) constructs an environment very unreliable in itself and adds another explosive element to the cocktail.

The big difference with any American thriller is that characters and drama are more important than action and violence. When the violence arrives, it shocks us without using spectacular special effects or big budget explosions.

In brief, do not get fooled by the lack of big American actors or just because it is a French movie. This is probably the most terrifying movie of the year; and does not have ghosts, zombies or serial killers.

Better writing and acting than cash truck but wrath of man was probably better as an action movie. Still i'd recommend this first. The ending is much better.

In France, the disturbed and mysterious Alexandre Demarre (Albert Dupontel) is hired as security guard for the Vigilante armored truck company earning 1,200 euros per month and lodges in a hotel nearby the company for 1,450 euros for a month. He becomes close to his colleagues, actually a group of losers, without motivation or perspective, paranoids, depressed and substances addicted men, and prepares a personal file with the profile of each one. Along the days, the real intentions of Alex in working at Vigilante are disclosed.

"Le Convoyeur" is a very dark tale of revenge exposed in low pace. Albert Dupontel brilliantly develops his weird character, and the viewer guesses whether he is a journalist, a writer, an uncover detective of a thief planning a next robbery based on the financial balance between his salary and the cost of his hotel in the beginning of the story. I regret only that his motives are disclosed very soon, practically in the middle of the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Assalto ao Carro Forte" ("Heist to the Armored Truck")

Why almost every single movie I watched from the 2000s feels like it's dragging on?

I suppose it was a sort of style back then. I have seen the remake of this movie twice, and I do see the resemblence. However, here, I did not appreciate the lack of story arcs.

The main motivation for our lead character is established, but the background and other, more broad information is lacking. I would love to know more about his past. If he started to learn how to actually handle a gun only recently, or if he has some past to back it up.

I also missed the background on the whole crew of robbers.

The first half of the film, it feels like literally nothing is happening. Then it takes a turn, and the rest of the runtime is packed with story.

It is more of a drama, than an action film, but I could not handle the horrible visual effects, that were pulling me out of otherwise pretty well-handled action scenes. Even if there were only few of them.

Using smoke grennades as props for VFX flashbangs was definitely an interesting idea, but did not work out at all.

This movie came out 20 years ago, back then, quality VFX was much harder to do, and I am glad they attempted, however, when they saw it was not working out, they should have chosen a different path.

The concept of this film is very interesting, and I'm glad it was chosen as a basis for a remake, which did add a lot, and covered a lot of what I missed in this movie. But it had to be a great foundation, for the later writers, to be able to build on something.

This movie deserves a watch, gives insight, into the "low budget" french cinema of the 2000s. I mean for one tenth of the budget for "Wrath of Man" this is a solid piece of work.

It's no wonder Guy Ritchie was attracted to this story, and liked it enough to remake the film, Hollywood style. Le Convoyeur is the better film, although Wrath of God is admirable as a thriller in its own right. Le Convoyeur has better character development, and doesn't have distractive subplots involving the robbery gang. I don't want to spoil anything, so give it a watch, and judge for yourself.