French Blood 3: Mr. Frog

The weakest and most disjointed of the series so far. Not the final part of a trilogy, as I earlier thought, but the latest in a planned franchise.

The story of a drug robbery gone wrong is as stylish as we have come to expect, but not engaging or consistent. We feel sympathy for none of the players, or one at most - the least involved. The story of an underground post-apocalyptic society is rambling and overlong.

The main thread, though, the rape victim and her subsequent actions, takes more prominence. Revenge, planned and carried out with cold precision. Slowly the hierarchy of sawdust is revealed, the organisational structure.

It is an interesting experiment in filmmaking, not telling the audience (as far as I can see) how many episodes will be needed to complete the story - current pacing suggests one bad guy per film, but we don't yet know how many will need to die.

The series mixes dark interiors with brightly-lit family settings, cold-blooded murder with zombie horror and interpersonal passion, and always with that chic French stylistic approach. Even the bits we don't understand we can appreciate for their mise-en-scène.