Overdose

I love to watch a good French crime movie. The French are really at good at making them. Unfortunately this Netflix movie is just going through the motions...

The bad: this is just another, cheaply produced Netflix formula crime movie.

It has ONLY got (way below) average actors starring in it. And that is a problem, because there are LOTS of TEDIOUS talking scenes, in which these (way below) average actors have to try and elevate this story to a suspensful level.

And that is the other problem with this movie. It is definitely LACKING in suspense and thrill. Not even the (few) action scenes are any good.

Bummer. Just another (failed) formula crime movie. Incredibly tedious watch...

This kind of product contains a set of ingredients that we find in all films of this genre, precisely. You need cars and motorcycles, with crumpled canvas and chases. You need a more or less intense police war, in this case less so, as the different police forces communicate: Spanish, French, Parisian, provincial, special units. You need weapons. It needs villains, thugs, who when they appear shout it (hairstyles, costumes, make-up). It needs gore and extreme violence, here unnecessary (the hammer) and off behind a wooden door (good idea). It needs sex, which is totally unnecessary here. And a romantic story between police officers. All this is conventional and unoriginal. But it's well tied together by a script that integrates these ingredients.

Olivier Marchal deserves credit for his talent in directing the actors, all of whom are excellent. The film is perhaps a little long (20 minutes too long) and could have been tightened up a little. But on the whole, it lives up to its brief. A nominal quality in a conventional package for the genre to which it belongs.

No pun intended - the movie is not so much on the funny side, in case my summary headline confused you. Just saying. That said, I did not make the connection to Sicario (though I can see why some would do that) ... it would or rather kind of is unfair to this movie to compare it to a masterpiece though. This has a right to exist on its own - away from Sicario.

That said, the story is easy to follow and you have crime fighters going against bad guys ... I mean if you are into that sort of action orientated genre stuff ... I won't have to excite you any further. It is well shot and there is enough suspense from start to finish to keep you interested ... action is well shot too ... what more do you need? If the answer is not much ... well watch and enjoy.

Over the time Olivier Marchal created his own sub genre of gritty French movies and some of them could be treated as niche classic. The formula of success was quite simple: down to Earth cops who often forced to work with the criminals in one way or another to stop the bigger evil, dark story, complete disregards for happy endings and visually dark cinematography. You can find sun in some of his movies, but it always feels like a dark cloud forms above the character on the screen even if action is set in Nice or Marseille.

Sadly, this one is never going to be one of his best films, neither will it be even close to pieces like MR 73 or 36 Precinct. First of all, story. It feels like the script was made from some leftovers and it lacks common sense. Criminals could be stupid, but organized crime, the focus of this movie, usually is not. Their complete disregard of operational security, useless violence, reckless behavior are only serving as reasons to provide the viewer with dramatic, clip-like scenes of fast cars and automatic weapons in action. While some action scenes are quite decent, the story feels nonexistent and the script feels incoherent to the point of discomfort and total disbelief. I will not spoil the story, but it is as unrealistic as it even could be and any Marchal fan will spot it after first 10-20 minutes of runtime.

If you are in the market for a good French action, check out Stronghold (2020), Les Miserables (2019) or Athena (2022): all of them are doing better what Marchal have started while maintaining a good, believable story.

The only reason Overdose exists is to make cash to its creators and you can do much better with your time.

Are usually very good at this kinda genre, but this flick really undermines the reputation. Its not the cast, by all means they do their job, so it has to be something else...who overdosed is still a mystery.

Quite a few things i might mention without spoiling the fun for thos who loves french police-bandit action thrillers. The story is full of plotholes and the actual caracters are poorly presented. The plotspeed is like a 118 minutes roller coaster of gutwrenching action and...nothing..., that repeats itself at least 10 times. The cinematography could might as wellve been made by a youtuber, its mostly and merely only close-up-inside the communicative comfort zone camera zooms, and dark musky , fathaired blackeyed hyperpupilllated gangsters and policemen hunting and carchasing eachother in a clonical fit-like ad/hd-amfetamine pace, can be pretty dragging and you loose the thread in the heat of the hunt....

but that aint the actors fault, its rather a wannabe french superdirector who wants to hang on to a great french franchise genre. So if you can deal with a lot of confussion in a mach2,2 speed, then its a recommend from the grumpy old man.