La prochaine fois je viserai le coeur

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.

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.

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..!

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.

Intelligent, frosty character study of a French serial killer of young girls, based on a real case from the 1970s. The super dark anti-hero is played with great subtlety by Guillaume Canet, and the film is very well shot.

But there's a last layer missing that keeps this from going from a very good film to a great one. As much as it's always interesting, and sometimes even heartbreaking, there's a lack of larger theme or context that keeps this confined to being a thriller/character study - if a very intelligent and thoughtful one - and not the rare film that transcends into something even larger.

But it's still very worth seeing as a study of a brilliant but tortured man compelled to horrible violence, and on 2nd viewing I found it a more powerful and emotional experience, catching details and moments I missed the first time around.