Le Guetteur

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Detective Mattei (Daniel Auteuil) is on the trail of Vincent Kaminski (Mathieu Kassovitz) a rooftop sniper who took out a bunch of police officers while a daring bank robbery was in progress. But as he digs deeper in to the case, he uncovers even more dark, disturbing secrets.

It always seems to be the case that the continentals seem to make the better quality films, in terms of writing and general production values, and if their market doesn't get the best exposure, it certainly receives the greatest critical acclaim and there are quite a few who want to imitate it. They seem to come up with all the original ideas, that's for sure, and that's something Hollywood certainly can't claim. This familiar truth may be the case with The Lookout, even if it's not maybe the best example, perhaps.

It's an intricate, absorbing thriller, quite faultless but still unremarkable, but you can't help but get the feeling that someone, sometime will try and do it again. ***

Daniel Auteuil is one of the best actors of his generation and beyond worldwide. He not only resembles phisically to Robert DeNiro but his talent as an actor also shows huge resemblance to DeNiro's talent. Thus it is worth watching him in every role he plays. And he is one of the most versatile actors playing cops, historic figures, everymens and you name it. This film is a thriller worth watching it.

Chief Inspector Mattei (Daniel Auteuil) and his team identifies bank robbers In Paris. They keep the group under surveillance and when they heist a bank, they are ready to arrest the criminals. However, the sniper Vincent Kaminski (Mathieu Kassovitz) surprises the detectives and the gang escapes. Soon Mattei and his team arrest Vincent that does not accept to snitch his friends. When Vincent flees from the prison, Mattei hunts him down in a cat and mouse game and learns what happened to his son that died in Afghanistan.

"La guetteur" is a French thriller with an excellent storyline and promising beginning with a fantastic shooting after the bank heist. The cast is also great, with Daniel Auteuil, Mathieu Kassovitz and even a cameo of Fanny Ardant. Unfortunately the screenplay has several pointless subplots and becomes a mess from the moment Mattei learns what happened to his son in Afghanistan to the disappointing conclusion with Mattei letting Vincent go without any reasonable explanation. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Atirador de Elite" ("Sniper")

I'll admit, THE LOOKOUT starts off on a strong footing, with an expertly-choreographed piece of action charting the fall-out from a bank robbery. It harks back to the glory days of a similar sequence in HEAT, and has you on the edge of your seat as the minutes stretch out. Unfortunately, once this is over, the rest of the film never even comes close to that quality.

The direction of the film is to capture the disintegration of a group of bank robbers as they variously betray and bump each other off, while a dogged cop remains hot on their heels. And sadly, it's nowhere near as interesting or exciting as it sounds. This is one of those films that fails to feature even a single remotely sympathetic character, so that you wonder throughout why you're watching.

That wouldn't matter if the calibre of the script and film-making were exceptional, but the truth is that they aren't. There's a kind of humdrum, seen-it-all-before sense of weariness about the whole production, best summed up by Daniel Auteuil's yawn-worthy cop. The sub-plots are muddled and the characters uninteresting, so that by the time the end eventually comes around you'll be wondering why you're supposed to care.

So many good actors in such a disappointing movie. It looks like it was written in parts by different writers who did not know what the predecessor had written. Characters are superficial and not credible. For the first time, I found Daniel Auteuil not playing well.