This slick and melodramatic French mystery seems to have everything going for it: good actors, an interesting plot and beautiful photography. So what goes wrong? Call it incoherence. Gerard (1900) Depardieu is a down-and-out boxer who has some damaging information on a leading political candidate. Bribed to tell all to a newspaper, he finds himself at the center of a murder plot—his own. So far so good, but when the murderer turns out to be his double (also played by Depardieu), the movie falls apart. Poutingly beautiful Isabel Adjani plays Depardieu's girlfriend, and Marie-France Pisier is the wisecracking whore with a hilarious come-on. Director André Techine seems too preoccupied with style at the expense of good storytelling: Some of the scenes are lovely to gaze upon, a la Bernardo Bertolucci, but they often add up to nothing. (In French with English subtitles) (Not rated)
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