The Snake (2006)
A ruthless gang led by private detective Joseph Plender is extorting rich people and famous fashion photographer Vincent Mandel seems the next victim. He is married to Hélène, daughter of one of the richest people in Europe, but not quite happily. In fact the marriage is on the brink of a divorce and a judge is deciding who will take the two children. Can Hélène take them to Germany or will they stay with Vincent? Vincent has a lot on his mind and he improvises when model Sofia Kippiani comes to his studio, but his makeup crew doesn't show up. Before he knows it, he is accused of a rape. Things go worse and worse for Vincent, he sees his entire life slipping away and, most importantly, he might lose his children. But why does his former schoolmate Joseph Plender seek contact with Vincent and even solve a nasty problem for him? Does Plender want something more than money?
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Reviews
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Despite a raft of clichés and see-it-coming plot twists, French movie The Serpent is an intelligent and stylish thriller, which delivers its intentions without popcorn gloss. Yvan Attal is the anti-hero photographer who is framed by a beautiful model and thereon in blackmailed by and old boyhood 'friend' who is, surprise surprise, a psychotic killer (Cloris Cornillac) out for revenge after a traumatised youth perpetrated by his old pals. For good measure, he is still obsessed with his recently deceased mother, and regularly visits her glass coffin to pay homage (just in case we really wanted a big neon sign as to who the psycho is or will turn out to be). Yet for all that, the movie still delivers with an assured confidence, and the cast do well and lift it to very decent heights.
First things first. Do not believe English language trailers for French films. They lie. According to the trailer for "Le Serpent" you are led to believe that Vincent's (Yvan Attal) life is perfect. That Vincent has a dream home, a dream family and a dream existence. Then, into this idyllic fantasy lifestyle comes a man seeking to destroy it.... But why?OK. So far, so predictable. Luckily the trailer was mostly utter nonsense and incredibly misleading. Vincent's life is not perfect. Vincent's life is a mess. He is in the middle of a bitter divorce. His soon-to-be-ex wife is trying to take his children to live with her in another country. She looks like she may win. Then, after a sinister turn of events, a man appears offering help and then... and so on and so forth.I suppose that "Le Serpent" is a serviceable enough, if unoriginal, thriller, but I couldn't shake the niggling feeling that, despite some refreshing Gallic explicitness (Olga Kurylenko is extremely hot), it's true home would have been as one of those two part ITV thrillers they show on a Monday/Tuesday night, starring the likes of Neil Pearson, Robson Green and Jemma Redgrave. Not that there is a lot of obvious Englishness remaining in "Le Serpent", despite the fact that it was originally based on a novel "Plender" by "Get Carter" writer Ted Lewis, and was originally set in an English Northern town in the late 1960's. It's not a bad story. I would like to read that novel to see how faithful "Le Serpent" was to the plot."Le Serpent" is not bad for an afternoon diversion, but has nothing that will make it stand apart from a million other thrillers.
You have to be clear that our main actor will do stupid things here. If you can accept that and won't start thinking, about his every move, as if it were the dumbest thing a person can do, than you could enjoy this movie, otherwise ...A friend of mine, who disliked this movie a lot, stated it clearer. If characters in a slasher movie act a certain way, you kind of expect them to do so. But in a thriller, you'd be excused to expect, that they'd think before they do something. Again it's not the case here. But apart from that, the actors play their roles great, the story is good enough and there still is tension (if you let your guard down, as said before). Enough said then ...
A short comment to express all the pleasure I've had watching this film. Actors are very good; specially Cornillac who gives a disquieting credibility to his character, but Attal is impressive too in the role of the "not so good" hero. Barbier enjoys to revivify all our inner terrors (dark, death, madness ...) and sets the end of his film in a particularly spooky place. I regret I haven't read the book of which the film is inspired but I am sure the quality of the scenario is no wonder. I am pleased to see that the French can venture in a genre that we leave generally to the American cinema. I hope this film will be received worldwide with all the success it deserves.