Anthony Zimmer

Anthony Zimmer has disappeared with his ill-gotten riches, to change his looks and his voice with plastic surgery to escape the French customs police and a Russian mafia gang. A vacationer is selected on a train by Zimmer's girl friend, as having Zimmer's age and body build, and set up to appear to be Anthony Zimmer in order to fool Zimmer's pursuers. It works well, and the chase is on. One nuance of note: the customs police chief becomes fully aware at the end of what the viewer finds out.

A great film in all ways - superb acting, pacing, plot, scenery, and background music - all integrated in a very involving film. See this first, then see the remake (The Tourist) with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie to realize the faults of the remake. The Tourist is not all that bad, perhaps even above average, but Anthony Zimmer is much better.

...or she in his? Captivating, elegant little thriller. It's not spectacular in any obvious way, yet I couldn't take my eyes off the screen for just one second. It starts out almost exactly like "Mr Bean's Holiday": a guy on a southbound express train, headed for the coast, hoping for recreation. Which he won't find. That's where the the script leaves the common ground. It's rich in twists and turns, clever to the point of cunning. Production design and cinematography are among the most elegant you will find. Cool, minimalistic interior sets contrast with the time-tested cinematic sparkle of the Côte D'Azur. Similarly, wide-angle shots are inter-cut with extreme close-ups, e.g., of pills dancing on a shaking spiral staircase, the pulsing red halo of the caller light on a ringing telephone, or a pair of shades dropped casually into an earthenware bowl. Scenes you have seen a thousand times, this movie makes you see them with new eyes: a guy killing time watching TV, a car chase in an underground parking lot, or someone having coffee and reading the paper in the morning sun. Admittedly, Sophie Marceau helped to keep me interested. She plays a woman six years her junior, and she more than gets away with it. She is in the shape of her life. I think she may have had something done to her face, but it looks good and doesn't show. I can see why President Mitterand took her on his trips abroad as an icon of French allure. The five-second scene in which she wires herself for the showdown alone made it worth my while. The final plot twist may not be up to common standards of plausibility, but it doesn't subtract from 90 minutes spent in silent wonder at what the French can do with a little sunshine and lot of mascara.

This is a story which we've seen many times in American movies. About the common gentle guy who without wanting so, gets involved in heavy things. And it could happen to all of us.

The plot is rather clever, but you have some unanswered questions in the end. Sophie Marceaux plays the mystic lady and you never know whether she really is good or bad. Not even when the movie is over.

What is a quite intelligent psychological drama, turns into a violent outburst. Anyway it's nice to watch such a plot in another environment; here the French Côte d'Azur. But it's too physical in the end and maybe the plot maker hasn't had any real good ideas about how to finish it.

First I have to confess Alfred Hitchcock is not my favorite filmmaker - perhaps partly due to the somewhat clunky exposition he sometimes used but there are elements of Anthony Zimmer which I enjoyed and which recalled Hitchcock at his best. As so many have said before me Sophie Marceau is very,very good in Anthony Zimmer but , for me, Yvan Attal was the standout. I have liked his somewhat deadpan style since "Les Patriots" (still one of my favorite thrillers) and here, as the 'ordinary' guy supposedly caught up in things beyond his knowledge he plays a much more realistic Cary Grant type than you would usually see in a Hitchcock movie. Sure, you can tell pretty quickly he's not really who he seems to be but then how long did it take you to figure that Grant wasn't all he seemed in "North By Northwest". That's part of the fun of films like Anthony Zimmer. I've seen "Zimmer" twice and I'll be more than happy to watch it again.

There are some movies you watch to learn something, and some you watch to be entertained, and some you watch for both purposes.

This is a pure entertainment movie, and I liked it a lot. The most important things in a movie like this are to have a plot that twists and turns but remains at least semi-plausible, to have a reasonably attractive hero, a super-sexy femme fatale and appropriately menacing villains, and above all to keep up the pace no matter what. Anthony Zimmer does all of these things rather well. Throw in the bonus of lots of the high life -- the mountain-top super-house, the suite at the Carlton in Nice and all the rest -- and the extra bonus of a happy ending (I don't think that's a spoiler) and you make a very enjoyable evening out.

Don't bother trying to work out later how all the bits fitted together. Some of them don't fit all that well, but then they never do in films like this, and it's not the point. They fit together well enough while you're watching it.

I saw this at the annual festival of French films put on by the Alliance Française in Melbourne, Australia. It opened the Festival, and later was shown again at a multiplex. The later showing was originally supposed to be in one 250-seat cinema, but demand was so great that it eventually was shown in three 250-seaters simultaneously, all of which were completely full. We all went home happy.