Popular reviews

• 

  Review by sakana1 ★★★★

  Objective: 500 Million starts with Jean Reichau (a fantastic Bruno Cremer) in a dark room at night, training the sight of an automatic weapon on the head of a man in the building across the street, and pulling the trigger; it's only then that we find out the gun isn't loaded. Immediately afterward, Reichau picks up a pistols and points it at his own head. Later, he goes downstairs and tells his landlord/best friend if the guns, putting it this way: "I have to tell you: I got back ... my toys."

  In barely five minutes, then, we know our main character: he's damaged and unstable and knows it, as do the people around him. This is the world in…

• 

  Review by D Rock ★★★

  War is hell, including for those who participate in it and then return home to.. what.

  In this case, Bruno Cremer plays a veteran of the Algerian War who's done prison time for belonging to an outlawed paramilitary group fighting the French government it believes betrayed them and their 'cause'.

  The opening quickly establishes Cremer's Reichau as a deeply disturbed former soldier. Sucked in to a ridiculous heist plot by a former army buddy (and the obligatory babe), he heads straight for disaster in full cognizance.

  Try as I might it was just a bridge too far to sympathize with these hard-right paramilitary types ready to insurrect against their own government because it 'gave' a colonized people their freedom. These…

• 

  Review by Leavingfilmstrk ★★★½

  A grim and stylish noir slash thriller featuring Bruno Cremer and Jean Claude Rolland as former soldiers who hate each other and Marisa Mell as a model who brings them together to pull off a difficult heist.

  It's really Cremer's film and he's great in it. He's been in prison for trying to foment an uprising in Algeria, which was thwarted by Rolland, thus the animosity between the two. He at first rejects the plan to steal millions aboard a plane but he warms to the idea, seemingly because of the challenge.

  The war is very much part of the story and we witness it through news reports that keep playing in the background, and through Cremer who may never…

• 

  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

  A very good heist film centered on the fallout of the Algerian War. It is very nicely shot in a very realistic and propulsive manner. This has a fine balance between the more materialist genre needs and the large wasted sense of the veteran main character. Some great work from Bruno Cremer and director Pierre Schoendoerffer, a war film specialist, manages to keep its thrills and grim determinism in equal measure.

• 

  Review by More_Badass ★★★½

  Post-(Algerian)war heist film that’s really a ‘back home, haunted by war’ film. Sorcerer’s Bruno Cremer plays the ex-captain recruited for the caper, by the man who betrayed him during the war. But that’s all in the past now, right? What could go wrong?

  Cremer gives an excellent performance oozing with disillusionment and adrift frustration, uttering lines like “I need jungle and monsoon...” Marisa Mell is great too, practically making this her audition for Diabolik. Really well shot, a menacing monochrome of deep shadow and glaring night lights that turns the streets into a dreary new hell.

• 

  Review by marshlandz ★★★½

  It’s tempting to read this as some kind of sequel to Schoendoerfer’s seminal 1965 war film about Indochina, The 317th Platoon, which also stars Bruno Cremer and was produced by Godard patron Georges de Beauregard. In that one Cremer was an Alstatian pressed into service for the Wehrmacht to fight on the eastern front, ultimately ending up in southeast Asia as a bitter and nihilistic soldier of fortune. This time out he’s terrorizing the home front after being released from prison for his time in the OAS as a right-wing terrorist during the Algerian War. Without war, of course, he’s lost, wondering why he isn’t dead, one of the first images we see of him in a pitch black apartment…

• 

  Review by zabby ★★★½

  French Film Noir Watchlist

  Reichau (Bruno Cremer) is fresh out of prison for dissident paramilitary activities during the Algerian War. He's at loose ends when approached by the stunning model Yo (Marisa Mell) with an offer of a job. The man responsible for getting Reichau put in jail, Pierre (Jean-Claude Rolland) is a pilot and has a plan to heist 500 million francs from the Paris-Bordeaux postal flight. Reichau seems none too stable and antipathy towards Pierre call into question the potential for success.

  Directed and co-written by Pierre Schoendoerffer. The film is visually dynamic and compelling. Bruno Cremer inhabits his volatile violent character and exudes unpredictable anger. It seems that Marisa Mell's character's primary function is to wear striking…

• 

  Review by Jimmy Beaulieu ★★★★

  Une errance dans la nuit parisienne de 1966, dans l’hiatus entre les ruines et le pop, où tout ce qui arrive à donner une direction à la déambulation amère n’est que différentes strates de cruelles chimères.

• 

  Review by Brian Lindenmuth ★★★★

  Noirvember #22

  85% of this is damn near a classic. Gorgeous b&w. Cremer is great as a haunted soldier and prisoner. Marisa Mell is impossibly beautiful in her mid-60's fashion wardrobe as a high fashion model. That good preparing a heist, criminal process shit.

  Two things prevent this from being an all-timer.

  First, Cremer's character's final reel decision feels like it comes out of nowhere and feels like a let down for all that came before. Plus, it just doesn't line up with who his character was up to that point.

  Second, other that being beautiful, Mell isn't given much to do. Her character is a blank slate. She needed to be fleshed out a little more and given a chance to get her hands dirty in the scheme more.

  Still, this is an almost classic that has many things working in its favor and is worth checking out.

• 

  Review by BootlegBronson ★★★½

  "There are only three métiers for a man – king, poet or captain. Unfortunately, I'm not a poet."

  A terrific ultra-hardboiled crime pic in which a disillusioned former army captain plans a heist.

  There's lots to love here:
  – Bruno Cremer is superb as the burnt-out captain, a warlike man ill at ease in peacetime, the kind of soldier who dreams of going full-on Col. Kurtz in the jungle
  – the B&W cinematography is harshly beautiful, all inky shadows and hard light, a real treat for yer eyeballs
  – Marisa Mell is magnificent

  It's compelling and taut, a simple tale well told, but don't expect a fun caper – the shadows of Vietnam and Algeria loom over it.

• 

  Review by Jord ★★★★

  "I need jungle and monsoon."

  "That's what I wanted to know, if I could still frighten someone."
  
  Haunted by the Hell you survived, the suffering you brought, and the deaths you're complicit in, but also needing it again and again. Colonial violence is the legacy of the West, and no matter how many mirrors you hold up, some people don't want to confront that, but it's in the fabric of everything that exists in the imperial core. TV playing war around the clock, telling you it will always be on, and there's always a good reason for it, and you avert your eyes knowing full well you'll eat up their shit if it makes the guilt subside a little. This…

• 

  Review by bitterwjj

  Marisa Mell rocking that chic 60s attire is dangerous in its own way. A true bombshell in every sense. Those eye lashes can fucking kill. Molded with the dangers of Bruno Cremer lurking in the shadows of despair being a vet dealing with the Algerian War not going his way. You know this is a deadly combination.