La prochaine fois je viserai le coeur

It's winter 1978. French national police gendarme officer Franck Neuhart is a serial killer. He runs down Alice with his car and shots her three times. She survives and Franck writes in a letter to the police vowing "Next Time I'll Aim for the Heart". He starts hunting for young female hitchhikers.

There is a missed opportunity. Otherwise, this is a solid character study of a serial killer. Guillaume Canet plays it like a calm, nice guy. He's not out of control other than the killings. I like that he's messy killer. It's not another one of those precise serial killer TV shows. There is a horror to how normal Franck seems to be until he's alone with the girls. The missed opportunity is the lack of mystery. It could have kept the killer's identity a secret until a surprise midway reveal. Without that mystery, there is a lack of tension early in the movie. It takes a little while for the story to pick up steam. This is a good performance although the movie could have been more exciting.

This French serial killer movie is based on fact but an intertitle at the start tells us that it is also a work of 'imagination'. It's the kind of film the Americans do better but it has a clammy quality nevertheless and revealing the killer in the opening minutes actually adds to the tension and it's well acted and it's well directed by Cedric Anger. For reasons that will become clear very early on it concentrates very much on the police investigation while at the same time giving us a good, detailed psychological portrait of the killer. Unfortunately the film doesn't appear to have had much of a distribution so it's very possible it passed you by.

Original French title for this film is "La prochaine fois je viserai le coeur". It is based upon the real events that took place in 1978 - 79 in Oise County in France. A serial killer just starts killing young women and dumping their bodies. He then sends taunting letters to both the Police and their Gendarme cousins (separate departments). That is when the hunt is on. We know from pretty early on who the culprit is and so this is more of an examination of who this man was and what were his motives as well as a recreation of what took place.

The film plays out in a linear fashion with no back story and the makers have said they have had to use a lot of imagination and even supposition to fill those blanks in. So it is a work of fiction. Guillaume Canet ('Tell No-one') as the exemplar Gendarme with sociological issues is both chilling and convincing. The period detail is rather good but the eagle eyed amongst you will spot the same cars being used in different scenes (keep an eye out for a Triumph Herald) and as plot goes this does not hang about. As all thrillers need to be it is fast paced, there is an air of tension and the violence is both effective and at the same time done in an understated way.

All in all a very good French film - the subs could have been better - but that is generally the case these days. That said even at 111 minutes this felt like a much shorter film and as such it is one I would recommend.

A police officer cum serial killer targets the random girls and kills them brutally... He erase the evidence by using his police power.. Soo police department got very challenge to catch the him... But at last catch him with strong evidence... Good making and photography... Protogonist acted soo well..!

One time watchable movie..!

A police officer cum serial killer targets the random girls and kills them brutally... He erase the evidence by using his police power.. Soo police department got very challenge to catch the him... But at last catch him with strong evidence... Good making and photography... Protogonist acted soo well..!

One time watchable movie..!

Intelligent, pretty cold character study of a French serial killer of young girls that, unfortunately, only took stabs at the surface without digging deeper into the meaningful material. The casting is excellent with Guillaume Canet's performance as the exemplar Gendarme with sociological issues is both chilling and convincing.