L'empire des loups

I keep finding myself liking French action movies more than Hollywood films. Not that I hate Hollywood action films. This particular movie is good at one thing. Escapism. Pure escapism. The plot is so so, but the movie is such that almost 2 hours go by and I've hardly noticed.

This movie is much better than The Crimson Rivers 2. Although I love the character in that movie. Jean Reno's beard in this one is a lil off putting. But still great acting nonetheless. Empire of the Wolves (as is the name on the disk.. if you entered that in search in IMDb you'd come up empty handed. ) has great similarities to the first Crimson Rivers. Although there, the camera work was so superiour that there's no comparison. Crimson Rivers 2 is not based on a novel of the first movie. This one is. The score is pretty good. And the female lead did a darn good job with what she was given. I'm not entirely sure why some didn't like the movie, maybe they were expecting Delicatessen or some masterpiece. But hey, up against most of the Hollywood fare, this one trounces them.

7/10

Quality: 4/10 (confusing storyline) Entertainment: 10/10 Replayable: 10/10

Not a bad action/thriller.

A bit slow for a action movie, and not quite thrilling enough for a thriller. Still the action sequences were well done and some of the fighting sequences verged on excellent.

The story was slightly far fetched and tho the writers tried for twists it was really very straight forward.

Jean Reno was good as always and I thought Jocelyn Quivrin was excellent.

This movie was like a cross between "the borne identity", "seven" and 100 average cop movies.

Worth a watch id you like Jean Reno.

Well, I am certainly getting more and more impressed with the acting skills of Jean Reno, that's for sure! He shifts so easily between hero and villain. In this movie one never quite figured which one he was. At least I didn't. And the other actors, whom i am sad to say I don't know, did their part almost as good. All in all it was top notch acting all around, and that is seldom to see in an action/thriller. Usually it is the lead man or woman that carries the movie on his/her shoulder.

And the story went in so many different directions that I was kept on the tip of my toes for all of the movie.

The script was very tightly written, the pace never dulled, and the foreboding atmosphere brought forth by magnificent use of camera and lighting, went as a red thread through it all. It made me believe this was something it was not.

The reason I am giving Empire of The Wolves a strong 8, instead of a pure 10, is because of the scientific mumbo jumbo. It was the only part that seemed a little off. It was just a bit too much science fiction like. Now i love a good science fiction flick as much as the other guy, but it did not quite fit in here, i feel. They should have come up with something a bit more realistic. It isn't that easy to mess with memories.

And yes, i know that it probably were made that way on purpose, to throw the watcher off the scent, as was certain other unrealistic elements in the movie, that I won't go further into. But i feel they fit better with the mood of the movie.

Anyway, if you haven't seen Empire of The Wolves, do it as soon as you can. Because this is still a seriously well made movie. It is a shame it has such relatively low rating on the IMDb. It deserves better.

Paladin Steelbreaker

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I was slightly worried at first that subtitles were a bit ambitious for hungover Sunday viewing but it was fairly easy to keep up.

The two plot lines seem completely separate at first and they are nicely tied together later in the film. This works very well at giving two sides of an event without resorting to flashbacks or spoon-feeding the viewer.

You do have to think and pay attention to this film but it is not overly cryptic - I think I understood everything I needed to at the end. Some minor details might be a little blurry but these are not integral to the plot.

Some racial stereotypes aside this is a very well thought out and captivating film.

When the young detective Paul Nerteaux (Jocelyn Quivrin) finds the third slashed female corpse of illegal Turkish immigrants, he decides to ask for support to the experienced dark retired detective Jean-Louis Schiffer (Jean Reno) to chase the serial killer. Together, they infiltrate in the Turkish mafia trying to find the answer to the crimes. Meanwhile, the worker Anna Heymes (Arly Jover) is being submitted to a brain treatment and has severe headaches and glimpses of memories and visions. When these two parallel events collide, disclose that the Turkish organization "The Wolves" is behind them.

"L'Empire des Loups" seems to be a good story, but with a very confused and flawed screenplay. I have never read the book, where probably I would find the explanations for many situations, but watching the way I did, in a DVD spoken in French with English subtitles, I found lack of explanation for many points. I repeated some scenes, trying to see what I could have missed, but I believe the plot is really flawed. For example, Schiffer wears a necklace identical to the criminals, but it is never clear if he is a dirty cop or if he also belongs to or worked undercover in the organization. What are the reasons for the brainwash of Sema, and her visions of monsters and reference to the Four Moons? Was she a mule of the Wolves? Why waste such a woman as a mule and as a subject of an experiment? A simpler screenplay with fewer subplots would work better and better in a movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Império dos Lobos" ("The Empire of the Wolves")