Point Blank (A Bout Portant) (2010)

This movie almost perfect in a weird way. I know I'm going to struggle to explain this. It's like a take away at the end of a night out- and almost spiritual in the way, it fills you up to your soul. It's not actually the best meal you'll ever taste and you'd never attempt when you weren't drunk but used in a mercenary way, it just... It just works. It serves its purpose perfectly. Does what it says on the tin. This is an ideal example of the French modern thriller, made by an assured master of this sub-genre. I guess the most famous of these films is Taken. That was made by the French for Hollywood and worked like gangbusters. Recently Hollywood took on of the classics of the sub-genre, Anything For Her and made a foul horse turd of a remake called The Next Three Days, which I obviously still carry a high level of distain for. The original, which i admit now I did not see- was made by the maker of this film, Fred Cavayé but I promise to remedy that soon because this is everything you want from a thriller- it's short, sharp and assured.
What's great is that, he doesn't want to makes a 2hr action film with set pieces-he's made a 80min film which goes hard from the start and doesn't run out of steam. Cavayé also knows how to dress a simple story and make it LOOK convoluted- during the mid-section, the film does a lot of nifty twists and turns and doesn't really carry it through but it's not an issue.
Still I don't really want to say what the films about-there's elements of '2 strangers stuck together on the run', 'family in peril' and 'civilian has to take on criminal underground'.
Needless to say, I thought this was great; exactly what I hoped for...by no means,  the best movie i'll see this year and i have to say, that it's not as good as Animal Kingdom in the thriller stakes but  perfectly executed, in terms of genre and form.
Luc Besson and his proteges, like Pierre Morel and Olivier Megaton produce 2 or 3 films a year, in the hopes that they make something like this good but they never match their promise. Fred Cavayé obviously has the inside track on crafting these confectionery thrillers and will be great to watch develop in the future.
And this time, Hollywood - bring him to over and let Cavayé work on a bigger canvas. That would be best....

I watched Point Blank (A Bout Portant) (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Seven Samurai (1954)...