Frantic

Rating:
Summary: Excellent film, shoddy DVD treatment
Review: "Frantic" was released in 1988 and quickly disappeared from theaters, which is a shame because it's a great little film. Acclaimed director Roman Polanski has crafted a wonderful mystery/thriller. Unfortunately, Warner Brothers doesn't seem to care much about giving this movie the treatment it deserves. It's not widescreen, there are absolutely no extras (not even the requisite trailer) and it doesn't look like there was any effort in restoring the picture. The price is quite good compared to the average DVD, but you get what you pay for here.

Harrison Ford stars as an American surgeon in Paris for a convention and brings along his wife (Betty Buckley, who played the mom on the TV show "Eight is Enough") in order to make the trip something of a second honeymoon. They barely have time to settle into their hotel room when the wife mysteriously disappears. A "frantic" Ford spends the rest of the film looking for her and along the way he encounters mysterious Arabs, inept U.S. embassy bureaucrats, missing luggage, a dead drug dealer, and a young female party animal who ends up being his main source of assistance in tracking down his wife. It's an engaging thriller that gets a little contrived toward the end, but still a fun ride.

This is not a masterpiece on par with Polanski's "Chinatown" or "Rosemary's Baby," but still quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, the DVD is basically VHS quality. Shame on Warners. Still, if you want to pick up a disc cheap and don't mind sub-par quality, this is nice one to get.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Harrison Ford Movie
Review: I was very impressed by this movie. I've come to expect a certain kind of movie when I see something that is directed by Roman Polanski, but this movie was much different to me. This is a European espionage movie where Harrison Ford's wife is kidnapped because he accidentally picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport. The movie works because anyone who has traveled abroad knows how scary it can be to be a stranger in a strange land. Harrison Ford goes through what most Americans would go through in such a situation.... he's confused, he can't get help from anyone, and he's forced to go into the kind of seedy underworld that no tourist ever would want to discover in the city they're staying in. Polanski's wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, does well in this movie as a sort-of innocent French girl who is caught up in the chase. If you're tired of seeing Harrison Ford in action movies with little plot, then Frantic is something you should see because it features a very good story and great acting from Ford. Polanski is clearly a talented director, and hopefully he can return to directing big blockbusters like this.

Rating:
Summary: Ahhh Paris...
Review: Frantic is one of my all-time favorite sleeper Ford films. Frantic received anywhere from mixed reviews to a luke warm reception when it premiered back in 1987. Audiences and critics could not understand if it was meant to be a high octane action thriller or a throwback to the era of psychological drama a la Hitchcock with Parisian settings. It is actually a little of both but leaning more towards a slowly culminating subtle action feel. There are no huge pyro-technic explosions or violent gore. Just a few car chase scenes and ricocheting bullets...In the end, in my book, Frantic to me is more of a cult status Polanski/Ford Flick classic. From the opening movie credits rolling in the tradition of the way ending credits normally close a film, Frantic contained that eccentric yet highly artistic Roman Polanski touch. It also introduced Polanski's beautiful young French model/actress wife Emmanuelle Seigner (European Brooke Shields or Mariel Hemingway). While she provided much candy for the eye, her acting ability saw some room for improvement. Polanski's keen eye for directing is awesome;Particularly the way he does the rooftop scene with Ford's character and the French girl Michelle. If you were afraid of heights or suffer from vertigo, then this is your nightmare scene. Also, the scene where Walker awakes to see the huge Statue of Liberty is brilliant (you will know what I mean if you see this) !

Frantic is the tale of a happy married couple having their 20th Anniversary celebrated in The City of Lights while also combining a medical convention Dr. Walker (Ford) must attend. All is disrupted by an accidental switching of identical suitcases. One case contains the clothing articles of his wife Sondra ( Broadway actress/singer and 70's Eight Is Enough step mom Betty Buckley) and the other, well, you will have to find out by watching the dvd, an item the bad guys want. In an attempt of desperation to retrieve this suitcase and its contents they kidnap Sondra and hold her in exchange for the case with it's valuable contents. Dr. Walker must now rescue his wife with the aid of a street smart French gal named Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner) who is also entangled in this dangerous web of intrigue and may possess the key to the entire mystery...

What will mystify some viewers is something that a critic pointed out years ago. Here it is...If the bad guys knew what the suitcase looked like containing the merchandise, then why didn't they just run into the hotel room and snatch it? Instead, they left the suitcase behind but take the wife...Thought to ponder. But, then, again, such a quick and witty resolve on the part of the bad guys would have resulted in an extremely short film !

Moody and somewhat atmospheric is the way to describe Frantic. Moody and atmospheric also applies to the soundtrack performed by Ennio Morricone. A soundtrack which harkens back to the 70's detective t.v. series like Streets of San Francisco or Mannix but with a contemporary feel (use of orchestration with horns and electric guitar or bass). Throughout the film a song by Grace Jones entitled "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)" is ominously used to add to Frantic's feel.Frantic also possesses an 80's dated quality in music and fashion in quite a few club scenes but with that Parisian or European panache (in a good 80's way, er, ah, if that is at all possible). So, if you are looking for a Ford film with a bit of cinematic scenic style, a somber yet catchy soundtrack, Parisian setting, a hankering for reliving the 80's then Frantic is the ticket !

Rating:
Summary: Really good movie...really BAD DVD.
Review: Firstly, this is a great movie. "Hitchcockian" is the most frequent adjective used to describe it, and it fits pretty well. Harrison Ford is cast against type as a decidedly unheroic American heart surgeon whose wife is kidnapped within hours of their arrival in Paris for a medical convention, shortly after discovering that they've picked up the wrong suitcase from the airport (Indiana Jones/ Jack Ryan fans beware: Ford's Dr. Walker in this movie makes Rick Deckard from "Blade Runner" look like an Arnold Schwarzenegger character).
>
Rather than finding assistance from the local gendarme (and the US consulate), he finds bureaucracy (sp?) and an unwillingness to
believe that foul play may be involved. Only after breaking open the suitcase does he start to find clues as to what has happened...and why. Eventually he follows the trail to the apartment of a known smuggler (who is "in serious need of medical attention") and the "mule" employed whose suitcase was accidentally switched.
>
The mule in question is quite possibly the finest-looking piece of 1980's Eurotrash I've ever seen, the deliciously feline street urchin Michelle, played by Emmanuelle Seigner. She reminds me a bit of Anne Parillaud from "La Femme Nikita", even though that movie was made a bit later than this. It turns out that Michelle hasn't been fully paid for the job she's just finished, so she decides to help Dr. Walker find his wife in order to collect the difference she's owed.
>
Without giving away the story, the chemistry between the two stars is very good...Ford is especially believable as he never once looks comfortable in this movie (aside from his wife going missing, he speaks no French and hasn't been to Paris in perhaps 20 years; his awkward sense of displacement comes off as being incredibly genuine).
>
The DVD package itself, sadly, is far below form. A DVD doesn't require the "bonus features" package found in "Memento" to be a quality purchase...but a quality transfer is the least that should be expected. This DVD's transfer is exceptionally poor...at times it seems as though it were downloaded from a VHF telecast. And I was astonished to find that there wasn't even a widescreen option available...the scenes on Michelle's apartment rooftop would've been particularly more effective in this format...indeed, this is the first DVD I've ever owned (short of my little girl's Powerpuff Girls and Digimon discs, which are formatted for TV anyway) where the presentation defaults to full-screen. Shame.
>
I recommend this movie because the story, performances, soundtrack (that's a GREAT Grace Jones song, by the way...and anything Ennio Morricone touches turns to gold...everyone knows that), and price are all exceptional. 4 stars minimum for the movie based on these features. Considering that this is only a dollar or two more expensive that the VHS edition, it's actually cheaper to own on DVD...but with a DVD you expect so much more than what this package offers...and that's what brings down my review.

Rating:
Summary: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Review: Co-written and directed by director Roman Polanski, FRANTIC is a smart study of the anxieties of a man confronted with the disappearance of his wife in a foreign country. Harrison Ford is this man - a doctor - who has to cope with a language he doesn't speak and a nightmarish situation. Since the american embassy and the french police don't seem to want to help him, he will have to solve alone this puzzle.

FRANTIC will not be remembered as the highlight of Polanski's career but, for the director's fans, this movie is certainly a must-have and I'm glad to keep it in my library. Roman Polanski deserves a place of choice in the pantheon of the directors who have been interested in depicting the strangeness of Reality.

In 1988, when FRANTIC was theatrically released, french critics preferred to criticize the casting of Emmanuelle Seigner, Roman Polanski's bride, in the role of Michelle and forgot to appreciate the quality of the screenplay of this unusual thriller. Just count, if you're an Alfred Hitchcock fan, the numerous discreet homages to the Master hidden in the movie by the polish director.

Note that this review concerns the DVD zone 2 you can find at Amazon.fr in France. This DVD is slightly different from the one you can buy here. It offers a widescreen version of the movie while the DVD zone 1 presents only the standard pan & scan (beurk!) version of FRANTIC. Images and sound are of good quality. No extra-features but numerous different subtitles.

A DVD deserving to be rediscovered.

Rating:
Summary: Much too sophisticated for average filmgoers.
Review: This film is a Cornell Woolrich, entirely American style of thriller set in Paris in the mid-80s. It never veers from its exceedingly well-written premise and is peopled with a fantastic cast that makes this uprooted American genre work perfectly in new environs. Ford has never been better, and although Singer isn't going to win any awards her situation is quite believable. This is a rare and unique film, a thoroughly modernized Hitchcock piece that I feel outdoes a lot of the "master's" films. It reminds me of another maligned film, Snake Eyes, in that it has been totally misinterpreted by modern audiences seeking explosions and mind-numbing action scenes. This is a classic thriller. Really fun. And for anyone who has been to Paris, it's wonderful to see all of the locations and the portrayal of the underside of the city. Polanski is a magnificent director and plays every scene perfectly. LOVE IT.

Rating:
Summary: Average movie redemmed by excellent music & performances
Review: This isn't the greatest Harrison Ford or Roman Polanski movie. The solid performance by Ford, the film debut of Emmanuelle Seigner, and a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone elevate it a notch. Ford plays an American doctor, on a trip to Paris with his wife when she mysteriously disappears from their hotel room. The Paris police and the US Embassy are no help so he sets out to find her on his own. Emmanuelle Seigner (Polanski's very young wife) plays Michelle, a naive drug runner who happened to pick up the wrong luggage, his wifes, at the airport. They team up to solve the mystery. The cliches that show up in this movie are disappointing; The bumbling US Authorities, the Arab "businessmen". Polanski keeps it rolling along though. It isn't even close to being as good as "Chinatown" or any of the classis Hitchcock movies. The score is fantastic. And although Morricone is better know for the Sergio Leone film scores, this one should not be missed by any fans. He provides the perfect soundscape for the seedier side of the City Of Lights. The DVD capabilities are wasted. There are no added features and they didn't even bother releasing it in widescreen.

Rating:
Summary: Polanski does Hitchcock
Review: In Frantic, Harrison Ford plays a doctor who travels to Paris for a medical convention, but his plans change when, upon stepping out of his hotel shower, he finds his wife (Betty Buckley) gone. Receiving no help from the local police or American representatives, the good Dr. Walker goes on searching for her himself, and with the help of the beautiful and mysterious Michelle (Emmanuelle Signer) the search drags him into a world of crime, drugs, mistaken identities and international intrigue.

Of course, in the hands of the master Roman Polanski, Frantic is fantastically made and brilliantly directed. Even Harrison Ford, by far not one of my favorite actors (to me, Ford's career begins and ends with three classic characters: Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Rick Deckard. Everything he's done since 'Temple Of Doom' is just the same old character over and over again) turns in a respectable and believable performance. The trouble is Frantic lacks the depth we've come to expect from Polanski classics like Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby or Tess. It actually looks more like a Hitchcock than a Polanski - and that goes for more than just the plot, which is probably an intentional Hitchcock homage. The whole thing looks - unlike other Polanski films - not like an intricate and finely crafted piece of cinema which took two or three years to make, but like a simple story with simple schematic characters which is told in an intricate and clever way by a director who makes two or three movies a year, like Hitchcock. The only character in the movie that is structured and complete is Ford's; Michelle is quite intriguing (not to mention extremely attractive) but fails to make an impression and leaves as abruptly as she appears. As for Mrs. Walker, she serves more as a houseplant than as a human character. The rest of the characters are nothing more than aids or obstacles in Walker's frantic chase, though most of them are portrayed by talented actor who hand in satisfactory performances in their small parts.

Aside from all that, Frantic is quite an entertaining movie, if your expectations aren't TOO high; don't expect this to be another Chinatown. It's a well made, well built schematic thriller that treads familiar grounds and does what it's meant to do, which is thrill, suspend and entertain. As such, it's a fantastic thriller with great acting and directing, good suspense and a good share of comic relief. Not essential for Polanski fans, but worth the watch.

Rating:
Summary: Harrison-Polanski duet
Review: "Frantic is one of the best thrillers with Harrison Ford and there are two reasons for it: 1. Directed by Roman Polanski; 2. Filmed in Paris. I think Harrison Ford and Roman Polanski is one of the unreplacable duets in a film industry. I do also hope to see Harrison Ford and an actress Emanuel Seigler together on a screen again, because you can feel the chemistry between them, which does not always happened between the leading actors, and they do not even play lovers. If Harrison Ford plays in the movie, you don't even need to know anything else about the film - watch it!!!

Rating:
Summary: Haunting modern film noir
Review: A cold, carefully studied and intensely uncomfortable exercise in neo-noir, this film continues and compliments Roman Polanski's reinvention of the genre in "Chinatown" with only modestly less disturbing results. Symbolic bits of Americana slide into Polanski's vision of Paris as a dank, post-disco city of sleaze (with an appropriately grungy Seine to soak up bits of trash), with the chiselled Harrison Ford muted by his ignorance of French into communicating in awkward, half-finished phrases and angry bursts of insistence. But one of Polanski's many devices to confuse the audience's expectations consists in subverting the iconic Ford (as cardiologist Dr. Walker-- another hint of "Star Wars"?)'s rugged public image with scenes of humiliating awkwardness, in particular a nasty episode that seems to parody a famous scene from "Chinatown" (establishing nasal violation as a surreal Polanski specialty). The opening half-hour is as tightly handled as one could hope (it is a veritable primer of the cinema for handling such a situation) and the rest of the film, while some quibble with its developments, maintains a definite and palpable tone of dread and barely-fought-off despair. Paris remains throughout alien, inscrutable, and doomily modern-- the hypnotic white-lines imagery of the film's opening define the city from the first as anonymous, mechanical, just a big threatening metropolis instead of the monumental "City of Lights". Our American Abroad is heartbreakingly disconnected from everything loved or familiar. Emmanuelle Seigner is the ambiguous and grasping femme fatale, a scruffy and almost-loveable vixen who is also unpredictable and none-too-picky about her causes or company. The "action" scenes are minimal and realistic in tone, thus giving them a sense of danger and believability much more galvanizing than the fantasy scenarios in action flicks. Though not poured over today like some, more famous, Polanski films, "Frantic" is certainly a vital part of his dark and mesmerizing vision, and a courageous break from form for its star. As an Age of Terrorism noir drama starring a still very bankable lead and from a newly-resurrected director, it is sure to be raised to prominence.