The Crimson Rivers
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Movie Reviews of The Crimson Rivers
Movie Review: great murder mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie was excellent. This is definitely in the style of Silence of The Lambs.
I would recommend this to all who like great murder mysteries.
Movie Review: LUC BESSON!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Just one name for a good movie with a touch of humor: Luc Besson!
And see it in org. language!! If not ,You loose the feeling!
Movie Review: The Crimson Rivers -- Movie Review
Summary: 4 Stars
The Crimson Rivers, a 2002 French movie with English subtitles is directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and stars Jean Reno and Vincent Cassal. It's a taut physiological thriller with a surprise ending that will have you gasping for breath at the movie's end.
The Crimson Rivers was billed as "Se7en" meets the "Silence of the Lambs," and in the first ten minutes of the movie you'll see graphically why.
Reno, who acts in this movie like a French Clint Eastward, plays Detective Superintendant Pierre Niemans, a sleuth of such note, his crime classes are legendary among the French police. He is sent to a tiny fictitious university town of Guernon in the French Alps to investigate the bizarre murder and mutilation of a senior student at the local university. The University, which has been there for hundreds of years, is so self sufficient, it has it's own source of electricity.
The victim, who was bound in a fetal position, according to the local coroner, had his eyes removed and his hands cut off five hours before he died, which meant he spent the last hours of his life of intense pain. The person who found the body on a ledge of a mountain was Fanny Ferriera (Nadia Fares), who is a glaciolist/mountain climber, and also a student at the university. Niemans enlists her help in finding clues that may lead to the killer.
Almost immediately, she inadvertently leads him to a second mutilated body inside a cave in a mountain glacier, which is kind of spooky, since she is now connected to two grisly murders and immediately becomes the prime suspect.
Meanwhile 60 miles away, in the town of Sarzac, Detective Inspector Max Kerkerian (Vincent Cassel) a former car thief, who smokes pot in a squad car with his two subordinates, is sent to investigate the desecration of the grave of a ten year-old girl, who died 18 years earlier after being run over by a tractor trailer going 80 mile an hour. When her mutilated body was found by police, her mother was sitting on the side of the road holding the only recognizable part of her left, a small finger. Soon after, the school the girl attended was robbed and all records, and pictures of the girl were stolen.
Kerkerian finds the girl's mother, who is now a nun living in a convent. She has taken the "Vow of Shadows," which basically means, since her daughter's death, she's been locked in a room with no light. The Mother Superior at the convent tells Kerkerian, "You can talk to her, but you can't see her. We haven't seen her for 15 years."
The mother, sitting in the shadows, tells Kerkerian that her daughter was killed by "demons," and warns him, "Save your soul while you still can."
Kerkerian's investigation leads him to the town of Guernon, where his case now connects with Niemans'. After a brief scuffle between the two cops, because neither knew the other was the law, they reluctantly join forces. Niemans tell Kerkerian that he always works along and Kerkerian replies, "That makes two of us."
Two more grisly murders occur, and Niemans, obviously the more experienced sleuth, tells his new partner, "It's a treasure hunt. Each corpse leads to the next."
The subplot, which turns out to be the final clue to the murders, is that for the last 100 years, the university staff and student have been marrying, and sometimes inbreeding, which has totally screwed up the university's gene pool. People are not who they seems to be, and the town people's children, who are thought to have superior genes, because their parents weren't blood related, are taken from the parents and given to the staff of the college.
What follows next are crazy car and truck chases and Kerkerian being out-run by the suspected murderer, after a ten minutes romp through the town of Guernon. The movie ends with an over-the top avalanche and if I say any more I'll spoil the ending for you.
The reviews for this film were mostly positive. The only complains the critics had was that the plot was so intricate, the ending seems preposterous. But not to me. I loved it.
Filmtreat.com praised the interplay between the two cops. "Reno and Cassel are magnetic as usual in the central role. Their chalk-and-cheese chemistry never falls into the classic movie buddy cliches. And the film's overpowering gruesomeness is tempered by stylish intelligence and lots of mumbo jumbo that never quite makes sense. It's all so disturbing, witty and visually astonishing that we're just happy to be along for the ride. A superior, original thriller."
The View London reviewer felt the same. "It has to be said that Reno and Cassel make a superb team, even though the film contrives to keep them apart for almost an hour. Both are very big stars in France, and it's not hard to see why, as they are both excellent here."
This movie is not for the squeamish, but if you can take a little blood, guts and gore, you're in for 106 minutes of pure excitement. The ending is baffling, but not so unbelievable that it ruins the movie. A sequel was made two years later, but without Cassal.
On a range of one to five, I give The Crimson Rivers four solid stars. The only reason it doesn't get the full five is that the subplot is so extraordinary, it's hard to believe something like that could actually happen in the 21st century.
Movie Review: Better than average Jean Reno thriller. Muddy writing.
Summary: 4 Stars
`The Crimson Rivers' directed by Mathiew Kassovitz is a French thriller starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel. This movie should establish, along with Luc Besson's `La Femme Nikita', that the French are just a bit better than average at doing action thrillers, especially if they include Jean Reno in the cast, as he seems to be the French version of George Cloony, day old scruffy beard and all. I got this film based entirely on the fact that he was the lead actor in the cast and that it was obviously a police thriller, as this is his primary forte. I first appreciated his performance when he appeared in the title role of `The Professional' as a hit man for hire. I am less interested in his roles as the French actor of choice in American movies such as `Godzilla', 'Mission Impossible', and `French Kiss'. And, while her part is very small, I was delighted to find Mme. Dominique Sanda in this movie. She has always been a favorite of mine and she seems to be in all too few movies.
This movie is in French with good English subtitles. The essential director's commentary is also in French with English subtitles. It is in this commentary where the director reveals how important Reno is in French films. It also confirms several of my observations about the fact that while most of the movie was shot in winter, several scenes were all to obviously done in Spring or early Summer, even though they occurred in the film but a day before the winter scenes in the snow.
My reaction in the first half of the movie is that this is really terrific stuff. Maybe not quite as good as the excellent thriller, `Seven' with Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacy, but engaging nonetheless. The story starts out with two independent police cases in a small town in the French Alps. The first investigation has brought in Reno's character as a Paris expert on serial criminals to this small town. A local up and coming detective who has recently been promoted to lieutenant is investigating the second case. About halfway through the film, the two run into one another, compare notes, and discover they are working on two aspects of the same case.
In the commentary, the director notes that the novel from which the story was adapted spends a lot of time establishing the nature of Reno's character, but the film doesn't need to, as all this is taken care of by the fact that Reno is playing the role. This is actually one of the first problems I found with the exposition. The brief on the DVD jacket describes Reno's character as an expert in serial killers, but the case on which he is offering help has not yet established itself as a serial killing case. It is even odder that the local detective in charge of the first case does not know Reno is coming or anything of his reputation with the Paris police. The exact nature of his reputation is even less clear due to his rather direct approach to kicking down doors of houses where he wants entry. One thing that hundreds of hours of watching `CSI' have taught us is that good cops tiptoe around a suspected crime scene, if they enter at all, let alone the need to get a warrant to enter a private house.
I will stay away from discussing the resolution of the story lines, but I believe that in spite of how well the story builds up the groundwork of the two cases and the motives of the ultimate perps, I really don't think the underlying basis for the perp's motive is explored enough. Part of it is told, but once the writers open the subject, they leave the explanation in pieces on the table, without really putting it all together. One example is the fact that the medical examiners find acid rainwater in the first victim's eye sockets while there has not been any acid rain in the area for many years. The story offers an explanation of where such water may have come, but the circumstances around finding the first vic are inconsistent with that explanation.
Still, one can be seduced into enjoying the movie overall due to the great technique used to build, then unravel the suspense. In comparison, Dario Argento's `The Card Player' seems a bit amateurish. And, Reno's presence holds your attention, even though his part is less convincing as a police officer than the local investigator played by Cassel.
However good this movie is, its weaknesses make one appreciate how good movies such as `Seven' are. They not only end with a great surprise, every step along the way is logical and consistent with our image of how good police investigators really work.
As long as you disengage your critical judgment a bit, this is as good or better than a good, but not great American thriller. It is certainly not as good as `La Femme Nikita', but it is better than `Wasabi', another Reno vehicle I have seen.
Movie Review: Just like your favorite horror/thriller book on a TV screen
Summary: 4 Stars
Watching this movie made me think of what a wonderful book it would make! It had mystery, gruesome murders, great humor, action, fantastic landscape of the Alps and it was twists and turns of intrigue and a guessing game of "who did it?" But don't get me wrong, I loved it as a movie, just that it reminds me of the type of horror books I always read.
Jean Reno has always been one of my favorite actors, his cold stare, that pointy nose, the sarcasm and that ticking brain are always a great pairing when he plays a cop on a trail of hot murders. He is joined in this movie by Vincent Cassel who was brilliant in Brotherhood of The Wolf but he was insanely witty and funny while kicking some criminal booty in this one. As the viewer we get to see these two cops who start of working on two separate cases come together smack center in a middle of a mystery. Reno follows a slew of mutilated corpses with no eyes and their hand cut off while Cassel investigates a tomb disgraced by spray painted swastikas. It seems that the girl who was dead is walking among the living but that is not entirely the case. And when Reno runs into someone who looks just like the dead girl things get even trickier. The person who they search for is both a target and a suspect.
The concept of "Crimson Rivers" and it's sequel ; "Crimson Rivers, Angels of Apocalypse" is very interesting. It has to do with purification of the blood, and of breeding "perfect" human species. How that is tied to this story is not something I can tell, for spoiling a movie or a book is a huge crime!
All I can say is that the views of the Alps are breathtaking, the action is tight, there's fighting and chases, and so many twists and turns in the mystery that the end is a sweet reward. Fun movie if you want to spend a nice afternoon in from of the TV, wrapped in a warm blanket watching the snowy scenery and solving the puzzle along with our heroes.
I would also recommend the sequel which I watched twice all ready which was even better but very different in comparison to they way this was done.