A Crime

Whew! Bought this for a dollar at Dollar Store. Spent 99 cents too much. Basic plot; Man catches glimpse of car fleeing the scene of murder where his wife was killed. He goes to NYC to search for a cab with a scratch among 14,000 cabs. He races his dog on the side with a bunch of Asian dog racers. Alice Parker has a crush on him and frames Roger Culkin(shabby cabby) to take the fall so she can hook up with Vincent Harris (the guy whose wife was murdered).

In basic thrillers each scene should have you wondering what will happen next. In this film, you wonder when it will end as each scene is sooooooo boring.

Alice Parker (Emmanuelle Beart) has the emotional range of a piece of toast. Harvey Keitel needed some fast bucks for rent so he signed on as the cab driver and a chance for a sex scene (two) with Beart. She has one look trough out the entire film. The film maker could have used a mannequin and saved a few bucks.

Keep your remote in a holster so you so you can fast draw for fast forward. You will be using it a lot. The writer needs a course in screen writing. Or watch Breaking Bad for basic screen writing, where each scene keeps you anticipating the next scene. Not praying for a quick ending.

A Crime should have been directed by Michael Bay and made into a 10 minute film. This movie has more in common with Plan 9, than Clouzot.

Vincent (Norman Reedus) is still suffering the loss of his wife killed three years ago by some psychopath taxi driver. He can't move with his life so his neighbor (Emmanuelle Béart) who has a crush on him tries to help him by trying to find this killer. Easy? Maybe. So she picks a random taxi driver (Harvey Keitel) and starts to get involved with this strange guy and she's gonna invent that this guy is really the killer of Vincent's wife. And then...

The story behind the movie "A Crime" is one of those intriguing stories where the next movement, the next step is always awaited. There are many surprises, not in that clichéd sense of plot twists, but just in the way that you can't see the obvious, it doesn't exist here. A quiet and slow paced story where the development of the characters and their actions is more important than to really know if they're gonna find the killer or what's gonna happen with Roger the taxi driver. But this is not a perfect screenplay, there's few things wrong with it (the beginning was way too fast, in one moment Vincent see his wife dead and then the movie leaps three years later; and his first moments with his neighbor are quite strange, not well explained).

But besides that the movie floats very well and leaves the viewer wanting more of it. "A Crime" runs about 100 minutes but I think that it could be more longer specially in terms of characters development (mostly Vincent), showing the previous life of the main characters and things like that because these characters are presented and we're feel like "Can we like these characters? What's their reason behind their actions"? It misses much.

The performances are good, most notably Harvey Keitel (How come this guy gets incredible roles where he has to perform erotic scenes at the age of 60? Things that even younger actors don't do frequently and I'm even comparing him with his young co-star Reedus who only has one scene with Béart and it's not even close of Keitel's seductive scenes with Béart). Béart was quite convincible in some parts as the desperate woman who wants to be with Vincent but instead she got trapped and got romantically and sexually involved with the taxi driver. I really liked Norman Reedus mysterious performance here but I wished he could have more scenes and a better character development. Most of his lines are whispered so I advise you to turn up the volume or you're probably miss what he's saying.

A surprising, effective and great film to watch. 9/10

The three protagonists are dull and dreary; Harvey Keitel, a zen/boomerang throwing/aging taxi driver, Emmanuelle, an unemployed petty criminal/drunk( and ravishingly beautiful), who for unknown reasons is madly obsessed with Norman, an average looking depressed unemployed underground greyhound racing addict, each one living in shabby apartments. Then comes the love triangle with unsavory intenions; two characters wanting to murder the third character. At this point you flash back to Reservoir Dogs and hope they all shoot each other. I think the blame is with the director for painting such a gloomy portrait with sorry to say, POS characters. Put this in the hands of better talent it might have had a chance. (And gross more than $400,000. How pathetic.)

Harvey Keitel has a sterling reputation of finding the weirdest roles possible and this is yet another one. He also has the reputation for always finding roles in which he gets to flash some skin, and again this one is no exception. Keitel plays a brutish cab driver who gets caught up in a plot of seduction and intrigue.

It's a weird story about weird people. Altho made in 2006 it certainly looks like it was made in the 70's like in the time of Taxi Driver. There's some skin in the movie. Dialogue is average so nothing special there. Seems like there could have been more to it I am sure many would find it boring.

6/10.

a film, scenario and atypical director ! it will stay as a classic ! Manuel Pradal film an unknown New York and actors as Emmanuelle Béart is so different and natural as she have to be. Keitel is one of the New Yorker's indispensable actor that Manuel Pradal use as a "maestro"You can't miss this movie wrote by Pradal and Benaquista in the mood of Ginostra as a great scenario, a great story. there some Ferrara inspirations, and definitely Manuel Pradal is an author, not only a director, interested and inspired by stories, in love with actors and giving the right place to them and to the special locations... In this case New York is an actor as Keitel and Beart and will stay like in the Scorcese's Mean street and taxi driver...