Le dernier tunnel

Great storyline, lots of suspence, and a beautiful emotional element which is sure to reel you in. The movie is filmed and the story told in a fairly generic way, which will really give us a chance to export it easily. Except for the language barrier, american audiences will find that "Le Dernier Tunnel" is created in a way which resembles a Hollywood film. Very proffesional. The director has a lot of talent and vision. It's really a great story -- reminds me of Ocean's Eleven -- and I hope the film will do well in America and abroad. Personally I hope they chose to add only subtitles to the movie instead of changing the soundtrack to another language because when a movie is translated you just know the voices are different, the mouths don't move right and it just takes away so much from the experience -- it makes the movie seem corny.

Érik Canuel's "Le Dernier Tunnel" (2004), inspired from the true story of Marcel Talon's surreal bank robbery, tells the story of an audacious bank robbery made possible by digging a tunnel from the sewers beneath busy downtown Montreal streets into an underground bank volt, where millions of dollars are 'safely' kept. This film offers a genre approach unprecedented in Québec's cinematographic history, which Canuel seems to be making a ritual of, adding to his already impressive filmography, along with "La Loi Du Cochon" (2001) amongst others, a genre film of international caliber. "Le Dernier Tunnel", a typical heist film, reminiscent of such 1950s heist films as Jules Dassin's "Rififi", or of such recent renditions as Frank Oz's "The Score" (2001) (also shot in Montreal), proves that Québec's growing genre film industry can now be placed into an international context, without appearing recycled or banal, while maintaining a cultural uniqueness proper to Quebec. On an aesthetic level, taking into account the film's overall stylistic approach to the heist genre, "Le Dernier Tunnel" is cutting-edge; The editing is sharp and multi-layered, and the cinematography is meticulously executed -as it should be- to convey moods relative to any given scene, which is customary to Canuel's cinematic style, who is admittedly intent on using more than just a superficial cinematography. Overall, this picture, with a meager budge of only 4.5 million dollars -which for Quebec standard is considerably high, but represents nothing in comparison to any aesthetically equivalent Hollywood genre film- offers an approach to the heist film rarely scene before.

Note: My grade of 7/10 is given within the context of the genre it conforms to -more precisely to Quebec's genre capabilities- and isn't meant to reflect anything pertaining to its place in the greater context of cinema's 110 year history, which would then be absurd. If it were, its grade would obviously be considerably lower.

Okay, guys, maybe I am a little too harsh on this movie, but what is that all about? Okay, it is realistic material that is filmed, but still... First of all the introduction of the main character takes very long - and it's not worth it! There is no struggle to be seen in his way through the movie. He is not changing anything although one thinks something would change in his mind. This love-story of his is sooooo boring, 1000 times to be seen before and flat as a sheet of paper! The other three guys introduced are of perfect stereo-type of a robber's movie: we have the old veteran, the main character's best friend and somebody who wouldn't let him down; the 'oppponent', a very aggressive and not to be believed in type; last but not least 'Smiley', an old acquaintance of the main character; he organizes the money for the deal. The lightning, the cut and the camera and most of all the music are so tension-seeking it really gets on my nerves: e.g. Smiley's face is ALWAYS lightened up only from one side to give him a "dubious" touch - very clever! But back to the content. Why do we like to watch robber movies? Right, the preparation, the exact planning, the carrying out of the plan in detail. The movie lacks in all of these categories. All this is replaced by a - as already mentioned - extremely boring love-story, probation-assistant fooling-around ("Why didn't you meet me?" - "I hit my head" - hahaha) and the relation between the four gangsters; that at least could have been an exciting study to see - but it isn't at all. The 'turning points' (if one can call them so) are somewhat predictable it hurts! I'm really sorry but that movie is a certain '1' or '0' if that existed. It may be thrilling if you are 15 of age or a total entertainment-dependent junkie with an IQ of less than 70 - or it is your first movie you ever watched... for everybody else: HANDS OFF!!! One good thing about it: it made me register at IMDb because I was so upset and wanted to write a review so that nobody else makes the mistake and spend a cent seeing this movie...

When le Dernier Tunnel failed to get important nominations at le Gala des Jutra ( Quebec's own Oscars ) Éric Canuel, director of Le Dernier Tunnel, said that the genre movies ( horror, thriller, etc. ) were not appreciated as more serious movies like The Barbarian Invasions. Well maybe so, but what Canuel is forgetting to mention is that his movie, genre movie or not, is one of the most uninspired thriller in years. I'm from Quebec so I already know all the actors in Le Dernier Tunnel and they are usually among the best ( like Michel Côté ) but Canuel's movie manages to make them look pretty stupid and artificial. Besides that the omni-present music is absolutely annoying, the camera work tries to be cool but only look clumsy and, worst of all, the ultra-conventional script and pretends-to-be-tough dialogues. So unless you've seen less than 10 movies in your life or if you are a teacher who wants to show an example of a bad bad movie stay away from Le Dernier Tunnel. One more thing: Quebec's critics rarely say bad things of Quebec's own movies because of the small market and that they want to protect themselves but even Le Dernier Tunnel got bad reviews so believe me when I say it's worst than bad !

Brief summary: annoying overwhelming music clutters every moment of this ridiculously cliché movie. Every character is a one dimensional joke, every plot point predictable and, as far as American heist movies go, this one is the least interesting. Oh, did I mention this "american" heist movie is Canadian ? It's like the hugely under-talented ex music video director decided to copy the Michael Bay style of bad Hollywood crap but without bringing anything original to the recipe. And with very little money, I might add.

Canuel, the director, once said in an interview about his other movie "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" that the way he writes his scripts is by watching lots of movies like "Lethal Weapon" and reproducing what he thinks works. Thank you for being honest about your lack of originality, Érik ! The writer of "Tunnel" probably used the same method to bastardize true story and make it so generic. Canuel's talent resides in color grading his movie to look like a bad episode of CSI and using every tired directing cliché used in the past decade to remove any interest this might have had.

Skip it at all cost ! Seeing "Tunnel", and knowing that its inspired by a true story doesn't help