Tornei-me um Criminoso

"L'Addition" is a worthless film about a man wrongfully accused. What tripe!

Each and every situation in this film is irresponsibly contrived, and not a single scene or any of the details are even slightly believable.

In itself, I can understand someone writing a story on a subject in which one has very little knowledge but how this story got all the way to "the finished cinematic stage" (without getting axed by sensible proof-reading) is beyond me.

The embarrassing dialog in this film might be suitable for an American film but I just can't believe that this film is French! Not that France hasn't made its' own share of idiotic films as well, but it's normally done so in its' own, unique French way - not in the American "believe anything we tell you" cliché-ish character fashion.

Richard Bohringer has never impressed me. His sinister "whispering voice" (which is popular in Italo/American Mafia movies) is old stuff, and he does just as little to heighten my appreciation of this film as he has done in any of the other films in which I've seen him.

On the other hand, I consider Richard Berry to be a very good actor and it is hard to fathom why he ever accepted a role in this crap. He's capable of making much better films than this. As a matter of fact Richard Berry's acting in "L'Addition" is the only thing I can say good about the film. But don't be mistaken into believing that his performance makes this film worth watching. It is not. "L'Addition" can only be tolerated by placing corks into your ears and a blindfold over your eyes…but then you'd have no reason to shove the thing into your DVD/VCR player in the first place.

This film is a completely unmotivated piece of trash.

This prison drama is well-directed and acted enough to get you past its considerable implausibilities: We're supposed to believe first that the entirely innocent protagonist is sent to jail for trying to cover for a stranger's shoplifting (Victoria Abril. whose character later marries him, perhaps out of guilt). Then he's almost immediately an innocent bystander caught up in other prisoners' jailbreak, and is given a long prison sentence for THAT based on guards' falsified testimony. The rest of the film has him tormented by the guard who blames him for his being wounded, even though that wasn't at all the hero's fault, either. The result is variously like "On the Yard," "Fortune and Men's Eyes," "Midnight Express" in that the new fish is abused by guards and fellow prisoners alike, blackmailed, beaten and forced into violence. Though in the end the story is not as bleakly worst-case-scenario as you might be expecting.

Berry brings a lot of conviction to his role, Richard Bohringer is excellent as the Javert-like villain, and Vincent Lindon is vivid as the psychotic inmate that villain manipulates against our hero. This isn't a serious indictment of justice or the prison system so much as just a character-driven thriller, and as such it's satisfying. Some of the music on the English-dubbed print I saw is a bit inappropriate, though-too heavy on wailing 80s guitars and not focused enough on heightening suspense.

In French, the word "L'addition" has two meanings; the first one is "the check", what you pay in a restaurant, for example. The second one is "the unpaid bill", something owed. And our hero (Richard Berry) has to a lot to be reapaid.

He is a criminal. Or, actually , a criminal by chance. Seeing a shoplifter (Nathalie Baye), and sympathising with her, he intervenes, and gets caught. Nothing serious up to this point. Unfortunately for him, he is always at the wrong place, at the wrong time. And so, he gets caught as a participant on a prison break attempt, while being just an innocent bystander. He receives the anger of a jealous, ambitious, neurotic policeman (Richard Bohringer), but he wasn't the one who hurt him. The greatest enemy of this person is his luck.

This may not sound exactly like a noir film, but in effect, it is. It takes place in a police station, its heroes are both in the world of crime (okay, not deliberately), and there is also a romance between two people chased by the law for petty crimes. While the plot may seem lame, it is executed well, the director portraying it as a serious affair and not as a comedy -although, rest assured that if it were a comedy, it would bring some laughs-. The characters are well-developed, with the viewer being able to empathize with the poor Richard Berry, who just can't escape this vicious cycle started because of someone else's mistake that has now brought to him the anger of the irritable Bohringer.

Speaking of which, both he and Berry - the two Richards- made an excellent job at portraying their characters. Berry was resilient, ready to make everything in order to escape this hell he was brought to. Bohringer is the exact opposite, vainly, he complains that in fifteen years of working as a policeman he has never investigated a murder. His chance to shine is with this case, for once he can be responsible for someone. His way of doing that, of course, is by tormenting him whenever they meet, something that doesn't exactly help at improving their relationship. Baye, who had acted amazingly two years earlier with Richard Berry in "La Balance", is quite convincing as his loyal lover, who falls for him from the day he saved her from going to prison. I have to point out here, though, that her romance with Philippe Léotard in "La Balance" was more intense than that shown here. I could attribute this to the fact that Richard Berry spends most of the film's time in prison, but to be fair to Philippe Léotard, his chemistry with Baye was evident, something also exhibited by their real-life relationship. Richard Berry had no chance here, in prison or not.

Interesting to note is the small screen presence of Vincent Lindon, who played a psychotic prisoner. He would later get famous with a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies, like "L'étudiante" (1988), to more dramatic works.

The music left me uninterested for the whole of the movie. It was made up of synthesiser-driven melodies that sounded monotonous to my ear, and their only use was to accompany the scenes musically. They offered nothing else to the plot, neither emphasizing the characters'feelings, nor communicating other thoughts they might hide.

All in all, "L'addition" is a clearly commercial film, that deserved what it got (just over one million admissions in France), but nothing more. It has solid performances, good direction, and an interesting plot, that give it its noir character. Surely, when going out of the cinema, the spectators were happy enough not to demand their money back, showing "L'addition" to the cashier.