Le dernier tunnel

When le Dernier Tunnel failed to get important nominations at le Gala des Jutra ( Quebec's own Oscars ) Éric Canuel, director of Le Dernier Tunnel, said that the genre movies ( horror, thriller, etc. ) were not appreciated as more serious movies like The Barbarian Invasions. Well maybe so, but what Canuel is forgetting to mention is that his movie, genre movie or not, is one of the most uninspired thriller in years. I'm from Quebec so I already know all the actors in Le Dernier Tunnel and they are usually among the best ( like Michel Côté ) but Canuel's movie manages to make them look pretty stupid and artificial. Besides that the omni-present music is absolutely annoying, the camera work tries to be cool but only look clumsy and, worst of all, the ultra-conventional script and pretends-to-be-tough dialogues. So unless you've seen less than 10 movies in your life or if you are a teacher who wants to show an example of a bad bad movie stay away from Le Dernier Tunnel. One more thing: Quebec's critics rarely say bad things of Quebec's own movies because of the small market and that they want to protect themselves but even Le Dernier Tunnel got bad reviews so believe me when I say it's worst than bad !

Brief summary: annoying overwhelming music clutters every moment of this ridiculously cliché movie. Every character is a one dimensional joke, every plot point predictable and, as far as American heist movies go, this one is the least interesting. Oh, did I mention this "american" heist movie is Canadian ? It's like the hugely under-talented ex music video director decided to copy the Michael Bay style of bad Hollywood crap but without bringing anything original to the recipe. And with very little money, I might add.

Canuel, the director, once said in an interview about his other movie "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" that the way he writes his scripts is by watching lots of movies like "Lethal Weapon" and reproducing what he thinks works. Thank you for being honest about your lack of originality, Érik ! The writer of "Tunnel" probably used the same method to bastardize true story and make it so generic. Canuel's talent resides in color grading his movie to look like a bad episode of CSI and using every tired directing cliché used in the past decade to remove any interest this might have had.

Skip it at all cost ! Seeing "Tunnel", and knowing that its inspired by a true story doesn't help

In Montreal, the middle age thief Marcel Talon (Michel Coté) has spent a great part of his life in prison. When he leaves his confinement on probation, he promises to his beloved girlfriend Magdeleine "Maggy" Fortin (Marie France Marcotte) that he will find an honest job and have a decent life with her. Indeed Marcel has schemed the greatest heist to a bank ever happened in Canada, and he joins his old friend Fred Giguère (Jean Lapointe) and his non-reliable pal Smiley (Christopher Heyerdahl) and proposes to dig a long tunnel underground Montreal along the sewers for three months to reach the cellar of the Montral Bank. Fred's grandson and a friend of Smiley join the gang and along the robbery, an unexpected betrayal of his accomplices Smiley and Savard destroy the retirement plan of Marcel.

"Le Dernier Tunnel" is a very good movie based on a true heist of Montreal Bank called "the heist of the century". The realistic dramatic and suspenseful story of loyalty and betrayal has excellent performances and direction and is a great entertainment. I have never heard anything about this robbery, but this unknown little gem deserves to be discovered by fans of the genre. The shameful DVD released in Brazil does not offer the option of the original audio in French, only in English or Portuguese. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Último Túnel" ("The Last Tunnel")

Great storyline, lots of suspence, and a beautiful emotional element which is sure to reel you in. The movie is filmed and the story told in a fairly generic way, which will really give us a chance to export it easily. Except for the language barrier, american audiences will find that "Le Dernier Tunnel" is created in a way which resembles a Hollywood film. Very proffesional. The director has a lot of talent and vision. It's really a great story -- reminds me of Ocean's Eleven -- and I hope the film will do well in America and abroad. Personally I hope they chose to add only subtitles to the movie instead of changing the soundtrack to another language because when a movie is translated you just know the voices are different, the mouths don't move right and it just takes away so much from the experience -- it makes the movie seem corny.

Reading review here before watching the movie on TV got me unsure about it. However, this is a very decent movie that I really enjoyed watching. Anybody rating it under 4 stars or 10 (!) lacks credibility.

It is far from perfect, but it is a nice try at showing this interesting true-story that I did not know of. Good actors were used and they offered what we can expect of them. The movie started a bit slowly but I did not mind. This is not your usual Hollywood movie, not as fast moving, but to me that's not bad. It was realistic (much more than most Hollywood movies of the genre). I think the end could have been better, but it was acceptable.