Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Nursultan Tuite A good entertaining movie! Good movie, do not a comedy and parody, not just a film about drug addicts and irresponsible people. Film about the cynicism of our time on the venality of all. With the offer to see the world differently. The depth of the fall into the abyss of immorality. There is black humor and is not normative lexicon, as well as elements of eroticism and a lot of blood. The world of advertising so is business. The ending is so generally pleasantly surprised. Such an end, but as it turned out is not the end. Frankly I do not understand people who write something like "wasting time", etc. Movies must be different! And do not worry on the "worst film of the book." Just look!

unnatural_habitat 99 Francs is French filmmaker Jan Kounen's critique of consumer culture, based on the book of the same title by Frédéric Beigbeder. After 1 hour and 40 minutes of slick film-making, replete with ironic references to famous ad campaigns, beautiful people and lots of sex and drugs and rock & roll, the movie ends with a meek call to action stating that with a mere fraction of the money spent on advertising each year, we could put an end to world hunger. This astonishingly lame ending undermines any value the movie might have had.I suppose the altruistic blurb at the end of the movie is the kind of palliative the filmmakers needed to include in order to convince themselves that their movie has a higher moral purpose. The question is, why do they even bother? In reality, it is just a story about a narcissistic, self-loathing fashion victim who sees the error of his ways. The great irony, of course, is that had they spent all their time and money on charitable projects instead of making this movie, they could have contributed much more to ending world hunger.Himself an ex-creative adviser for an ad agency, Beigbeder wrote 99 Francs under the encouragement of another famous French author, Michel Houellebecq. Octavo, the main character, hoovers cocaine in rails forming the numbers 666, pops whatever pills he can get his hands on, screws hookers, drives under the influence, and , in his spare time, works for France's most powerful ad agency as a creative adviser. After a drug-fueled escapade in which several people might have been hurt, he decides to redeem himself. The movie offers two endings - one happy, one sad - and they both have him renouncing his consumerist lifestyle: one treats him as a Christ-like martyr, the other has him living out a Rousseauian back-to-nature fantasy on an island. Grade school stuff, I know, but not so awful as it sounds.In the adept hands of Jan Kounen, the movie is visually-engaging, rhythmic, and yes, entertaining. The problem is the story. Just like the book, the overall feeling is one of disingenuousness. Remember the scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden goes on about the superficiality of our consumer lifestyle? "You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f***ing khakis." Somehow, a hot-$hit guy dressed in fashionable clothes isn't the most convincing of anti-consumerism preachers. That's kind of what happens in 99 Francs.Even with the main character's redemption, 99 Francs gives the impression that it is more intent on looking cool than trying to open people's eyes to the evils of consumerism. Basically, Jan Kounen and Frédéric Beigbeder deliver us the cinematic equivalent of putting a "Stop Global Warming" bumper sticker on a gas-guzzling Hummer.

dschmeding I never read the book of Beigbeder and so I was eager to see the movie after hearing many positive views on the book and knowing that the visuals of a Kounen Movie will be great. I didn't expect this movie to be so much of a comedy because the subject is rather tough. Anyway I think "99 francs" works really good on the level of a satire and it captures the deeply rooted cynicism that is implanted in the world of marketing and PR (in my opinion you can't work in this industry without becoming a total cynic) very well. I just loved the honesty in how the meetings and decisions were described as "masturbation" and how the main actors spend most of their time being high on drugs and their ego. Since the subject is so damn messed up I think approaching and ridiculing it with comedic elements made the movie more enjoyable. You will get many good laughs as well as following the comedy some direct punches to the stomach. All served in perfect visuals with loads of great ideas melting the flashbacks and development of main character Jean Dujarding together. The movie starts of practically with its end and then fast-rewinding to the beginning of how Jean ended up in Marketing but Jeans back story is shown in a very superficial way. You don't really know too much of him and rather see him on his job with his over-the-top cynic boss Marc and his slacker colleague Charlie. Like in every movie it takes a woman in the form of trainee Tamara to get the humanity out of Jeans character. They start an affair but when Tamara gets pregnant things get too serious and Jeans cynical world starts to implode leading to more and more harsh pictures breaking up the colorful advertising world.Until the first ending I think the movie already made its point by presenting a fake world of cynics with their ridiculous everyday life and how they feel like gods. Unfortunately someone had the messed up idea of presenting the movie with an alternate ending, so you get a very long second version... I get the idea of making fun of how things usually turn out in Hollywood movies and in a perfect ad-world but I think 99francs really messes up its whole intention. Guess what, you get an alternative ending in which Jean finds his humanity and moves to a tropical island finding his peace and love. Yes, we know that advertising and Hollywood clichés are superficial but that point was made before and by playing with the rules even when making fun of them the movie gets entangled in what it wants do criticize and to my understanding falls flat on his face, not even stopping from letting you leave the movie with a preachy message printed on the screen.Its kind of like making the whole movie again and then telling the viewer what to think and in that its more of what it criticizes than it was supposed to be. That is really a shame because the movie is filled with eye openers and visual gimmicks that make it fun to watch (although the last part kind of dragged for me). So still "99francs" is recommended viewing especially for everyone who doesn't work in or near the marketing industry. But I wished the movie left the viewer with a hard and direct punch to the face and thoughts spinning in his head to come to his own conclusion and not some "hahaha"-fun ending with a preachy moral presented like in a "World Aid" spot.

naurimas-1 Watching this film will give some critical ideas about consumerism, dirty ideas of ad business, also lifestyle of people working in advertising business in France. The ideas are different from all full of humor American TV series about advertisers (e.g. "I Dream of Jeannie" and others). The ideas are different, though there are many elements of black humor, criticism of machos' vices, The critical idea is the didactic message of the film. The film reminds that people would not die of hunger if more money are spent not for creating ads to increase turnover, also true critical insights about consumerism, the idea that advertising in many cases sell only dreams for some time.The plot of the film is also full of visual experiments, some elements of animated cartoons, some repeated episodes which get more meaning at the end of the movie. Also the end of the film obviously make the viewer think more deeply about the nature of the change of the human being discarding commercial things.It is worth to spend time watching this French film full of experiments and critical ideas about consumerism.The book of Begbeider and the film are truly two different things, which add more ideas about critical insights about consumerism, advertising business.