Superior French - made dramatisation of the successful Harlan Coben thriller novel (which I hadn't read before-hand; my wife has and she tells me the film is true to the book). Of course the outrageous twists and turns of the plot take it out of everyday reality and it's not hard to see the Alex Beck character as a descendant of the Cary Grant / James Stewart type employed by Hitchcock as Mr Average whose world is turned inside out by "dark forces". However the direction is hardly backward-looking and pacy and involving. Francois Cluzet is first rate in the lead, even with an at times uncanny resemblance to Dustin Hoffman, and his excellent playing carries the film. He's particularly impressive in the chase sequence and climactic reunion scene with his wife. This scene is especially well filmed, the dream like figure of the man's long-lost wife materialising from out-of-focus background as the story turns full circle and ends, if not happily, then satisfyingly. The rest of the cast support admirably - unusually the scariest "heavy" on Beck's trail is depicted as a sadistic vulture-like female who clearly loves her work and then Rasputin-like takes an age to die when she finally gets hers. I enjoyed the unusual transposition of the tale to France as one wearies of chases through American malls with hordes of gas - guzzling US cop cars mee-mawing all over the place. The action is correspondingly crisper, cooler and clearer and all the better for it. Perhaps being based on a 400 page novel, some of the extraneous characters could have been edited out as I found their proliferation confusing at times; maybe the big-name author had some sort of JK Rowling-type approval to stay true to the novel source. The traditional "twist in the tale" ending plays well and there's also a great on - foot chase involving a particularly hairy crossing by the Clouzet character over a rush hour motorway. A shot in the arm for an ailing genre. More please.
Review of Tell No One
