Le Convoyeur

No commentator so far has referred to the opening of the film where Demarre and his son find themselves unwitting witnesses of a robbery and one of the 'braquers' apparently shoots Demarre and his son point-blank, though Demarre re-appears later (How much later?) alive and unharmed to join Vigilante. That's not the only unexplained event. Who was the silent woman with him on the park (Nursing home?) bench? His wife, lover? And the phone-caller who had somehow found his number? Why was he so adamant about not having his hotel room cleaned?

Leaving his overall motivation open to conjecture gave an added interest to the plot, but things left unexplained without the slightest clue as to their significance in the story are merely irritating.

Dupontel is tremendous. He has enormous presence and the rest of the cast, camera work, production and of course, direction, superb.

It's no wonder Guy Ritchie was attracted to this story, and liked it enough to remake the film, Hollywood style. Le Convoyeur is the better film, although Wrath of God is admirable as a thriller in its own right. Le Convoyeur has better character development, and doesn't have distractive subplots involving the robbery gang. I don't want to spoil anything, so give it a watch, and judge for yourself.

Why almost every single movie I watched from the 2000s feels like it's dragging on?

I suppose it was a sort of style back then. I have seen the remake of this movie twice, and I do see the resemblence. However, here, I did not appreciate the lack of story arcs.

The main motivation for our lead character is established, but the background and other, more broad information is lacking. I would love to know more about his past. If he started to learn how to actually handle a gun only recently, or if he has some past to back it up.

I also missed the background on the whole crew of robbers.

The first half of the film, it feels like literally nothing is happening. Then it takes a turn, and the rest of the runtime is packed with story.

It is more of a drama, than an action film, but I could not handle the horrible visual effects, that were pulling me out of otherwise pretty well-handled action scenes. Even if there were only few of them.

Using smoke grennades as props for VFX flashbangs was definitely an interesting idea, but did not work out at all.

This movie came out 20 years ago, back then, quality VFX was much harder to do, and I am glad they attempted, however, when they saw it was not working out, they should have chosen a different path.

The concept of this film is very interesting, and I'm glad it was chosen as a basis for a remake, which did add a lot, and covered a lot of what I missed in this movie. But it had to be a great foundation, for the later writers, to be able to build on something.

This movie deserves a watch, gives insight, into the "low budget" french cinema of the 2000s. I mean for one tenth of the budget for "Wrath of Man" this is a solid piece of work.

In France, the disturbed and mysterious Alexandre Demarre (Albert Dupontel) is hired as security guard for the Vigilante armored truck company earning 1,200 euros per month and lodges in a hotel nearby the company for 1,450 euros for a month. He becomes close to his colleagues, actually a group of losers, without motivation or perspective, paranoids, depressed and substances addicted men, and prepares a personal file with the profile of each one. Along the days, the real intentions of Alex in working at Vigilante are disclosed.

"Le Convoyeur" is a very dark tale of revenge exposed in low pace. Albert Dupontel brilliantly develops his weird character, and the viewer guesses whether he is a journalist, a writer, an uncover detective of a thief planning a next robbery based on the financial balance between his salary and the cost of his hotel in the beginning of the story. I regret only that his motives are disclosed very soon, practically in the middle of the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Assalto ao Carro Forte" ("Heist to the Armored Truck")

It is one of the rarest movies ever made about employees of armored cars companies.

The director Nicolas Boukrief told, when his film was released, that it has never been made before. It's a lie when you know that the same Nicolas Boukrief was a journalist for the magazine Starfix in the 80's, and he commented himself "Money movers", released in Paris in 1986.

"Money movers" was a feature directed by Bruce Beresford, shot in 1979, and the context was the same, a thriller about armored car companies from the inside. But the Beresford's movie was not exactly the same story as the "Convoyeur", let's be fair.

I do not say that Boukrief made a plagiary. But when he told every one that he was the first to shot a movie about money movers, he lies. No excuse for that. Threre is no harm to be influenced. The remake of "Criss cross", shot in 1995, - I don't remember the title, sorry - and directed by Steven Sonderbbergh was also about money movers, but not in the same way.

Anyway, I love this picture. A pretty good one and violent too.

But, in the real life, money movers are not all alcoholic, drug dealers or silly as they are shown in "Le Convoyeur". I know myself some Brink's employees. All of them did not appreciate this film for these reasons.