Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

valadas You will follow this movie with much attention and interest in terms of images and scenes but I must confess I have found the story itself in terms of contents a bit uninteresting since the plot has some coincidences that make it somewhat unbelievable. A couple is going to fetch their children who are at a summer camp in the south west of France. They are going by car from the north. The husband is a drunkard and he not only drank a lot already before their ride starts but he also keeps stopping now and then to have a drink on bars along the road. They begin to have fierce arguments between themselves and she ends up by leaving the car on one of his stops. He is bewildered when he comes back to the car and doesn't see her. She had left a note saying she was going to catch a train. From then on a succession of appalling incidents take place making the course of events very dramatic. It's a movie that keeps you attentive and alert all the time despite the fact that the plot itself is not very interesting.

dromasca The first few seconds of 'Feux Rouges' show Antoine - a mid-age Parisian insurance agent - writing a loving mail to his wife on the verge of a family vacation. The last few seconds of the movie show the couple exchanging loving smiles while driving to the South where they would pick the children from a camp to continue together the vacation. Everything goes wrong in the in-between.'Feux Rouges' starts as a relationship drama and turns into a thriller and a wrong-turn movie. It is inspired by a novel of the Georges Simenon, and as many of Simenon's novels the characters are far from being great communicators. The lack of communication, the routine and maybe the differences in social positions make of Antoine an unhappy husband who is ready to spoil the start of the vacations by heavy drinking while on road. Much of the movie happens on the road, and the gradual tension building picking with the disappearance of the wife Helen strikes a cord of uneasiness and even claustrophobia - great achievement for a film filmed on highways and roads with the sky almost permanently on view. As in many of Simenon's novels there is a moralistic twist, and justice is made even if it is completely the result of hazard and not of the will of men. And there is a huge price to pay for this justice, which we only can guess as it happens out of the screen and story time.Director Cedric Kahn has learned a few lessons in thrillers from the great masters, and fist of all from Hitchcock. Antoine is wonderfully played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin as the type of character that we know from the very first moment that he will get into trouble and he indeed does all to confirm this, but it is the character of Helene played by Carole Bouquet that he relates to all the time and who is his focal point of frustration, worry and love.The simplicity of the story telling, the careful gradation of tension towards horror, the low key ending which does not solve the conflict, but just postpones it beyond the duration of the screening make of this film a worth watching piece of cinema.

lori_stein When I see a movie being compared to the works of Hitchcock, it is my duty as a film buff to go out and watch it. But even if you were too put all expectations aside, I'm sure you would find a film with a solid idea, great acting, and some very suspenseful sequences, but also a film filled with plot holes and an unsatisfying ending.The film begins with a French couple going on a car ride to pick up their kids. The man Antoine (superbly acted by an actor I can't remember)has been drinking and during their trip he and his wife Helene (also great, but does not have as much screen time) bicker about how Antoine is not treated like a man. He stops for another drink, whereupon his wife says she will leave if he steps out. Antoine takes the keys and goes out for a drink, but his wife is gone, leaving him a note that she has taken the train. These first 20 minutes provide an excellent set-up, but things really start to crumble from here.I know its great to have the audience know more than the character does, but don't make the character so stupid that it takes him 45 minutes to figure out what we already knew in 5. The hitchhiker Antoine picks up should have worn a sign that said "I am an escaped convict" to save us half the film of watching Antoine pour his heart out. Also, there are so many red herrings that I began to have the most absurd theories (why is his hand in his pocket? is the killer alive? what has Antoine been doing before he crashed? is this even real?!?!?). Regardless, there are still some nail-biting scenes here, two that strike me as particularly unnerving: the ten-minute telephone sequence that is just perfect, and Antoine's nightmare that had me literally jump out of my seat.But you forget how intense this movie was because the ending contains no real payoff. Yes, I know its not supposed to be about suspense. Yes, I know we should have to analyze it because it is deceptively happy. But unlike a similar but better French thriller "Swimming Pool", this movie wraps up all the terrible events in such a pat ending that you can see it in two different ways: an analysis of one man's primal psyche that is marketed as a thriller (this is what it's supposed to be about), or merely a thriller. In the end, this movie barely gives you room to analyze. And when you do reach the conclusion (if you bother to analyze at all), its not really a message that stays with you."Red Lights" is a nice diversion with great acting and some good suspense, but one can't look at a movie in pieces. Whereas great psychological thrillers are like Rubix cubes, this one simply takes a bunch of random puzzle pieces, wraps it up in shoddy paper, and forces you to figure it out, even though the pieces don't quite fit.

Philby-3 CAUTION - SpoilerThe French seem to have a very different idea from Hollywood about what constitutes a thriller. Hollywood likes to pitch a regular sort of guy into a baffling situation over which he has no control – Denzil Washington up against shadowy State operatives, or Harrison Ford against various bad guys, for example. The pace is fast and there is tension followed by a let-up at frequent intervals. We, the audience, identify with the protagonist and cheer for him or her to succeed. In this film there is a central character called Antoine who is stupid beyond belief – Homer Simpson is a philosopher by comparison – and who gets himself into a nasty but routine situation he could have easily avoided (if giving a lift to an escaped psychopath is routine). Then he blunders his way out of it. We sigh with relief at the end as he avoids a fate he richly deserves. Funnily enough he is almost sympathetic, for his one concern is the safety of his family – he might be thick but like Homer his heart's in the right place.There's plenty of tension though, built up in a different way. The camera spends a lot of time on close-ups, especially on Jean-Pierre Darroussin (of Marseilles movies fame), who plays Antoine. An air of menace is generated by car radio bulletins, heavy night-time road traffic, seamy roadside dives and Antoine's increasing intake of alcohol, which reaches almost incredible proportions. Most of the time is spent on busy French roads at and we spend a lot of time waiting for the inevitable crash.Jean-Pierre Darroussin turns in a remarkable performance. He is a sort of French everyman, an insurance company clerk married to a much more high-powered woman who is a corporate lawyer (Carole Bouquet – gorgeous as always). You wonder how they ever got together. Yet Darrousin somehow convinces us that the fate of this little man matters to her as well as to us.The original property, apparently was a story by the prolific French writer Georges Simenon of 'Maigret' fame, and the interrogation of Antoine by an extraordinarily well-briefed police officer is straight out of a Maigret episode. I would think the story has been updated a bit (career woman attorneys were pretty unusual in Maigret's day). I can't really think that the police would assume so readily that Antoine was not guilty of any crime – police officers are known more for their pedantry than imagination- but at least it helps the plot towards resolution.You won't like this movie if you don't like French films, but it is a vivid and absorbing entertainment, albeit about someone we pity rather than admire. It has not encouraged me to any do more driving in France, even in an apparently indestructible Rover.