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The Crimson Rivers

The Crimson Rivers

List Price: $19.94
Your Price: $17.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I like thees feelm veery mooch...
Review: I luve Jean Reno. Let mee say zat frum the verry start, okay? Hee iss zo...ummm...ce qui est lui...so mooch of a man! Oui! A Man's man.

Theese film was evrry good, and I nevar closed my eyess enav wun time, OK? It iz made in France and wee are so happy that you silly Americans can zee that we are reel fimmachers. Pop! (Hand strikes pursed lips - Ed.)

Zo...please to procure zees "Discomatheche de Vidocinemathique Directouvefrontelevouissse le Tower de Dataeffilcamerbaert de Bicyclete Unicycle de Computeere Le Personele", or "DVD" as you strage peeepol like to say.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: All style no substance
Review: If The Crimson Rivers demostrates anything, it's that the French can make films as degenerative and silly as Hollywood. Indeed, using atmospheric cues and unnecessarily lingering close-ups of corpses from American genre high-water marks like Seven and Silence of the Lambs, writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz seems to be trying to get a job with Tinsel Town. He certainly shows off his action scene abilities with a ridiculous out-of-context kickboxing fight. The utterly dumb plot fuses serial killings, neo-Nazism, and class warefare. Now, tell me Kassovitz wouldn't be right at home in Hollywood! I will say that The Crimson Rivers, for all its nonsense, is vastly more entertaining than the horrid "long Came a Spider (or, for that matter, the god awful Hannibal), and Kassovitz's technique is so unabashedly crude and direct. In the end, The Crimson River might not be any good, but at least it's well made. Production values are first-rate, with cinematographer Thierry Arbogast's smooth, sweeping camerawork lacquering each frame with the same Euro-hip sheen which graced his work on Kiss of the Dragon.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Top drawer
Review: If u know your films, then you'll appreciate this one. Vinny Cassel is the biz and Jean is his usual class performance. Have a look at Vincent also in Doberman. Excellento.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Cool film, but a bit muddled too
Review: Jean Reno is really quite a fabulous actor. I have seen him in several other films and really liked him. Seeing him in this French-film where he would be speaking his native language (if it were not for the sometimes poor dubbing) is really a plus. Vincent Cassell is really quite good as well. This is a man who could be a pretty boy but for his slightly crooked nose. It makes him far more interesting than if he were pretty. He is quite good as well.

In fact, the cast is quite excellent. My complaint is not with the cast as much as it is with the rushed feeling ending and the often poor dubbing.

The dubbing can be chalked up to idiots at the hands of the machines and the voice over director not getting clear enunciation where needed.

The rushed ending is not so easy to dismiss. For a film that was all along far more enigmatic and aspired to much greater direction than most films of any nationality of this genre, the ending is solidly "Americanized." (read that to be "forced and easy"). I had the basic premise of the ending, including the killer identified within minutes of being introduced to the character - and that was disappointing. I don't know that the killer should have been so easily discovered by the viewer of this film - it promised to be better than that. Further, too little time was spent on the evolution of the discovery with the audience of what has happened in explained terms. We do know what happened, but the "why" is so rushed that I was rewinding the film several times to see if I correctly understood it. And last, the end result was just a bit too contrived for my taste - it seemed an easy way out. I don't want to give away anything, because it IS at its heart, a good film. It just wasn't as superior as I had hoped it would be.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Directory Comentary in FRENCH????????????????
Review: Ok Ok I know this is a french film. But when I switched to the comentar track it is also in french. AM I missing somthing is there a english comentar track and I cant find it. Or do I have to go get an english/french dictionary

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: extreme simplified!
Review: ok perfect camshots and effects that worth watching but jean reno's and vincent's outstanding play ain't enough to save the film 'cause the scenario has been too much simplified when comparing with author-Grange's book. Well, to tell the truth, i'm a bit disappointed with the film anyway it was gorgeous to see Jean Reno again after his stunning play with "Leon or The Professional"

Cagri/Istanbul-TURKEY

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: sound and fury signifying nothing
Review: Part-serial killer thriller (which tiresomely tries to out outre previous entries), part-cop/buddy action film, and all parts tiresome. By this I don't mean it is any worse than most contemporary Hollywood fare -- in fact, those who like formula films may even enjoy themselves. Not surprisingly, the director -- who some may remember for once having made an interesting film -- went on from this to make his Hollywood debut (the stinker Gothika). This is film-as-advertising (film-as-tv-commerical): it's not about anything but selling itself. It made my teeth hurt.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Serial Killer Stalks Elite University
Review: Pierre Niemans (Jean Reno) is sent to the small village Guernon in the French Alps to investigate a murder where the killer has cut off the hands, cropped out the eyes, and strung up a body in fetal position 150 feet up on a cliff. Meanwhile, Max Kerkerian (Vincent Cassel) is checking up on a grave desecration where someone has opened a grave and painted a swastika on it. The two detectives converge with their separate cases and something untold is about to be revealed. Initially, Crimson Rivers reveals a very dark plot that crawls under the skin; however, the storyline loses ground as it is being revealed to the audience. At the end the audience is left with a story of flat feeling.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Crimson and Chromosomes
Review: Previous reviewers have amply noted the similarities to "Silence of the Lambs" and "CSI", so let me skip that aspect and comment instead on a main theme of the plot, which is genetics. High in the Alps, where substandard soil content really did cause genetic problems for centuries, we are presented a college town in which too much inbreeding is resulting in degeneration of intelligence in professors' families. While professors everywhere will get a good laugh from that storyline, the film does create good general interest for the thinking viewer by posing some tough questions about eugenics and our attitudes toward the future of genetic engineering. Central to the theme of genetics is the idea of differences from one generation to the next, and again the movie comes through well by weaving in a leitmotif about the different attitudes and techniques of the two detectives, one about 50 years old and one about 25. Notions about bloodlines and bloodiness intermingle seamlessly throughout most of this film. It is a shame, though, that we are deprived of a comparably intelligent ending to the story, and are instead given a trick ending so crazy, confusing, and downright stupid that it nearly sinks the movie. Juicing up an ending is an all-too-common practice at most movie studios. I have the strong impression that this story was the victim of one too many script-doctors.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: looks good but doesn't satisfy
Review: Reno is always a pleasure to watch, but this run of the mill serial killer film holds no surprises.


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