Le Convoyeur

Le Convoyeur (Cash truck) is one of those "minimalist French thriller" that will keep you in the edge of the seat for the entire movie. What the movie lacks in budget terms is compensated with the superb (and intense) acting for its main characters, especially Albert Dupontel (IRREVERSIBLE), a character you will not forget very soon.

Alexander, a really strange and disturbed man, starts working as a security guard for an armored trunk company. The universe surrounding him is truly unbelievable; just because is real.

We meet a bunch of lazy losers, which could be categorized as drug addicts, drunks, depressed, inept or nuts, and Alexander fits in all of them. To make matters more interesting; all of them are carrying guns with minimum training (one shoot a month) and earn a thousand Euros (about $ 1300) a month for transporting millions in cash.

It is easy to predict that under these circumstances, things could go REALLY WRONG.

After a while, we also realize that Alexander has his own agenda. He inquires about routes and events randomly. He even searches his co-workers lockers.

Without giving out more, lets say that Nicolas Boukhrief (the director) constructs an environment very unreliable in itself and adds another explosive element to the cocktail.

The big difference with any American thriller is that characters and drama are more important than action and violence. When the violence arrives, it shocks us without using spectacular special effects or big budget explosions.

In brief, do not get fooled by the lack of big American actors or just because it is a French movie. This is probably the most terrifying movie of the year; and does not have ghosts, zombies or serial killers.

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.

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.

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.

Better writing and acting than cash truck but wrath of man was probably better as an action movie. Still i'd recommend this first. The ending is much better.