La sirène rouge

Although a little slow at the start the Red Siren warms up to be a movie worth watching.

What the red siren lacks in terms of a strong story line it makes up in the magical way it has been filmed. I would recommend seeing this film just for the magic behind some scenes.

The plot is somewhat weak and it feels like something is missing at the end and some of the acting is lacking at times but all in all I found the Red Siren to be a good movie.

Hugo and Alice make a good team and the chemistry between the actors make it believable for Hugo to be transporting Alice across Europe.

(2002) Red Siren/ La sirène rouge (In French with English subtitles) THRILLER/ ACTION

An adaptation of Maurice G. Dantec's "La Sirene Rouge" about 12 or 13 year old little girl coming into a police woman's, Anita (Asia Argento) office to report a murder of her favorite nanny. A nanny who was killed as a result of an extra marital affair that came between her mother, Eva (Frances Barber) and her father. Except that Eva is wealthy and powerful and will do anything to prevent this exposure from happening. While this little girl is escaping, she finally finds solitude when she meets up with a trained assassin, Hugo (Jean-Marc Barr) who felt troubled after he accidentally shoots a little boy that happened at the start of this film, and is wanting to make amends by helping the little girl find her biological father.

Somewhat low budget and action-less until at least after the first hour when trained mercs entered the building where the assassin and the little girl are staying! This movie has it's moments, but the plot is very conventional! This movie gets a pass since it does have potential!

This bloody yet stylish European action thriller is well filmed and ambiguous enough to allow your imagination space for thought. Olivier Megaton direction is thoughtful and holds this interesting picture together. Jean-Marc Barr is good as the trained assassin who becomes the girl's protector. His acting inspires confidence and credibility to become Alice's (the girls) savior. Asia Argento who plays Anita a cynical Police Inspector who also needs to protect Alice. This seems to be at the core of this movie. Both Anita (Argento) and Hugo (Barr) need to protect this girl for personal reasons. Although the film does not elaborate on Anita's past you can sense her empathy seeing Alice as the girl within herself. Hugo on the other hand is a loner and has become jaded by his past experiences and through Alice he finds a reason to once again believe in his own goodness. - PCL

Euro thriller is flawed but mostly entertaining. Casting is a typical Euro-pudding mish-mash of international actors and varying accents, with some actors obviously and not particularly well-dubbed. Asia Argento at least does her own dialogue, but some of the voice actors here are stiff enough to be distracting, particularly the girl, who never really generates much sympathy since her line readings have all the emotion of a bored child in language class. The central relationship between the good-hearted mercenary and the girl on the run from men with guns is highly reminiscent of Leon, but without any of the chemistry. Like most European films shot in English the script suffers from frequent, occasionally laughable tin ear for the language. On the plus side the movie is quite stylish and the suspense set pieces are well-constructed and mostly quite effective. On the whole I would recommend this one, but with a more competent English language rewrite and a cast that actually could speak the language, this might have been a far better film.

In Paris, the twelve years old girl Alice (Alexandra Negrão) arrives to the police station, and asks to meet detective Anita (Asia Argento). In her office, Alice tells that her mother Eva (Frances Barber) is a sadistic killer and delivers a video showing Eva torturing and killing their maid Sunya. The chief of police does not believe in Alice, but Anita decides to investigate by her own and finds that Eva is a powerful and wealthy leader of an international criminal organization. When Alice escapes from the guard of the detective in charge of her security, she decides to travel to Portugal to meet her father, who is supposedly dead, and is chased by two gangster of Eva's organization. Alice meets the traumatized mercenary Hugo (Jean-Marc Barr), who protects and travels with her to Portugal, trying to find her father, while Eva and Anita also travels to that country.

"La Sirène Rouge" is one of the most unbelievable and flawed screenplay I have ever seen. The storyline is actually a great absurd since the very first beginning until the last scene. Nevertheless, there are many action scenes and shooting and this movie entertains. I personally am a fan of Asia Argento, and her name in the credits was the great attraction for me to see this movie. In the hotel, in the check-in of Hugo and Alice, the soccer game is between Flamengo and another Brazilian team. Later, we can hear the speaker narrating another soccer game in Brazil. Therefore, the language is Portuguese, but the teams and the accent are not from Portugal. I found this sequence ridiculously hilarious. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Alerta Vermelho" ("The Red Alert")