The French thriller Point Blank is a nerve-racking, relentlessly action-packed feast. To ignore it is to lose out on the summer’s most exciting escapist yarn. Like this year’s brilliant Italian film, “Double Hour,” waiting for the inevitable American remake is tantamount to waiting for a McDonalds to open in your neighborhood before going out for a sandwich.
Channeling the no-holds-barred French thriller tradition of Luc Besson (the original “Le Femme Nikit”a), Point Blank’s “hero” is an innocent nurse’s aide, Samuel, who along with his foxy, pregnant wife, Nadia, gets suddenly caught up in a “really revolting development” (to quote an old 50s TV show). Seems there’s this infamous nasty criminal Hugo, a victim of a high-speed car chase, now residing in the hospital where Samuel works.
Those damn Hippocratic oaths! Samuel saves Hugo’s life when someone sneaks in his hospital room and wouldn’t you just know it: next thing, Samuel wakes up beaten in his own house, Nadia’s missing, Sam gets a call she’ll die if he doesn’t spring Hugo from the hospital, and we’re off to the races!
To say Point Blank is one long continuous chase scene where Samuel pushes himself beyond what he ever dreamed himself capable to save his innocent wife, is to call Dom Perignon a table wine. Like the bogus “Not For Weak Stomachs” warning for “Snakes in a Plane”, here there could legitimately be included a “not for the faint of heart” warning. Much guilty pleasure was gained for this reviewer (himself no “spring chicken”) watching this film in a screening comprised mostly of seniors. While some loved it, many were in over their heads when it came to the hyper-intense pace of “Point Blank” (not to be confused with the excellent John Boorman/Lee Marvin 1967 film).
Director Fred Cavaye previously did the little seen Anything for Her, which was remade as “The Next Three Days” with Aussie Russell Crowe. Here Cavaye casts perfectly. Both Gilles Lellouche (Samuel) and Roschdy Zem Hugou are excellent, and supporting players Gerarrd Lanvin and Mireille Perrier as a couple of warring police honchos, are equally poignant.
Experiencing Point Blank one feels the rare pure grip of absolute visceral cinema. Leave your mind home for once. Just bring your body, and if you think you may need it, plenty of oxygen to revive yourself.
8.5 Heart Attacks out of 10
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