Subway

I watched this again to see if the integration of flashy Hollywood values into French cinema looked any better fifteen years on, and it really didn't. The movie's extremely loose plot and visual restlessness have their engaging elements, although more in theory than practice: I wish, for example, that the contrast between the initial elegance of the spiky-haired tuxedoed Lambert suggesting a punkish James Bond, and his ultimate incarnation as a doomed Robin Hood, were more interesting. The movie also contains traces of anarchy (Adjani disrupting a constipated upper-class dinner party); conventional send-up (the ineffectual cops); scattered cultural references; and apparent unapologetic self-indulgence. It occasionally makes it as a kind of scrapbook of high-concept images and impressions, but is probably best summed up by Lambert's ineffectual, smirking central void of a protagonist. The final delivery of a would-be significant message through an utterly trashy song doesn't cap it off much.

This film is about an upper class woman falling in love with a thief, who lives an alternative lief in the underground passages of the subway.

I was hoping this film would be as exciting or suspenseful as the "Leon", "The Fifth Element" or "Joan of Arc". I must say I was disappointed by this film. Maybe it was because Subway is an earlier film, and he had yet to develop his skill and style. I found Subway rather boring as there was not much going on. I was expecting more chases, drama, violence and psychological games.

Instead, the film is slow paced, dialog sparse and content sparse. We get treated a 90 seconds scene of cops walking down some stairs. Is this scene interesting or even necessary? I also am disappointed that there is little portrayal of what goes on in the subway passages. Just having some cat and mouse chases is not interesting enough.

This is a pure exercise in style from the Luc Besson school of film making. A handsome gangster joins ranks with a school of dropouts who populate the Parisian subway system, hounded (but never phazed) by transportation police. The trouble is that head honcho Fred has fallen in love with the pretty but stroppy wife of one of his BCBG victims, and strife ensues below the streets of gay Paree.

Christopher Lambert is amazing as the stylish rebel gangster with a heart, Fred; Isabelle Adjani is pretty but, as always, deeply annoying -- she just exudes arrogance from the bottom of her dainty little heart. On the sidelines we see an impossibly young Jean-Hugues Anglade, Jean Reno and Jean-Pierre Bacri. I actually didn't recognise Reno, that's how young and unknown he is here.

If you have a deeper interest in cinema, this is a straight ten. It's amazing how Besson brings together great style, action, fun, pace, acting, dialogue and amazing characters. Unlike most directors who film in the province and try to make it look like Paris, Besson films in Paris but makes it look like Metropolis.

Unfortunately, there isn't much of a plot and zilch suspense. The film starts with a heated heart-to-heart between Fred and pretty Héléna, and since we are aware that their affair can't end but unhappily (albeit in an incredibly chic way), the suspense is exactly zero. So if you just want entertainment, you should better pick one of Besson's later movies.

High-speed trains, stations lighted or in dark, crowded or deserted, underground tunnels and the mazes of the subway networks have long been an ideal space for interesting films and especially for quality thrillers, from his Larry Peerce's 'The Incident' from 1967 until 'Kontroll' by the Hungarian director Nimród Antal made in 2003. 'Subway' made in 1985 by Luc Besson fits well in this good company. It was only the second feature film of the French director made when he was only 26 years old, but we can already find here many of the creative and original features, the pace, the audacity, and a degree of disregard for the social and cinematic norms that they would make him one of the important names of French and international cinema in the coming decades.

Luc Besson takes a story not too original and does not do too much to develop it beyond the basic premises. We don't have too much psychology in this movie, its story and the characters don't offer too many interesting things at first glance. An occasional burglar breaks a safe deposit when invited at a high bourgeoisie party, a young and beautiful rich woman gets tired of her tycoon and gangster husband and of the hypocritical conventions of the upper classes and looks for something else, the two will be chased by a police commissioner who seems to have come from other French police films and his incompetent subordinates, competing with a gang of gangsters incompetent as well. What is different is the setting in which the action takes place, which is for the most part the seemingly infinite maze of underground Paris. This was, in fact, the space in which the story of many books (signed among others by Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Gerard de Nerval, Gaston Leroux) and some films inspired by these books takes place, but here we are dealing with an underground world invaded by the modernity and the technology of the 80's. And yet, this is a different and contrasting world than the one 'above', where many unexpected things are possible from love stories to the formation of musical groups. Dangers, violence, tragedies are not lacking either.

Viewers who will focus on the way the film is made and the colorful characters that populate the underworld will find plenty of reasons of satisfaction in the 'Subway'. The film begins with a spectacular pursuit that seems to belong to Luc Besson's later films, but continues underground, where cinematography and scenery create the feeling of dynamic claustrophobia accompanying the entire film. Isabelle Adjani is gorgeous, a bleak beauty looking for an alternative to a glittering but empty of content life. Christopher Lambert has the most remarkable performance in this film, a role very different from others in his career. I also was delighted by the presence of Jean Reno in an original role that precedes his fame and by Michel Galabru, a formidable actor whose roles as police commissioner fit him like a glove. Éric Serra's music accompanies the film and is part of the action. Luc Besson has managed with 'Subway' not only to make a special and original film, which has enjoyed public success as well, but has also signed a declaration of independence from the film noir or the traditional French action films proving that it is decided to make cinematography his way.

I love French cinema, just so you know. However... This movie has no plot, no character development, no vision, and no coherence. It starts nowhere and goes nowhere. It doesn't so much "end" as much as it just "stops". I own this film on DVD, and I can't even give it away because I'd feel responsible for whoever else would watch it. Besson is a master. Even the masters can craft some dreck. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible film.