Have Mercy on Us All (2007)

Sick Product of a Sick System

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Director Régis Wargnier gained international fame (and a somewhat controversial Best Foreign Film Oscar) in 1992 for "Indochine", but 15 years later he made what can best be described as a b-movie that in most countries went (and deservedly so) straight to DVD. It's not unwatchable, but it is mediocre. The story lacks propulsion for so long (the film runs nearly two full hours) that when the plot finally starts twisting and turning, it's hard to summon much interest. I must admit that it took me two different sittings to complete the viewing. The cast is good (this was Michel Serrault's last film), although "Indochine"'s star Linh Dan Pham has only a decorative role here. ** out of 4.

The film was okay, not brilliant but good enough to watch if you want an easy time with not much tension. It felt more like a soap opera episode. From the trailers I knew they would kill the original story but I thought it would still be a good movie, because of the actors. It's not horrible, the acting is fine and I like this way of filming, but the plot is quite shallow at parts and the characters do inexplicable things. There are serious plot holes, because the film makers spent lots of screen time showing us naked behinds of dead bodies and there was no time left for giving the characters some depth and consistency. The writers go straight to the point before the first ten minutes and then try to build tension on things that couldn't support it. All the plot holes are explained in the book.*spoiler*The scare wasn't in the possibility of a plague outburst but in not understanding how the trails were connected and why.If you've read the book or intend to do so, don't watch the film. Don't even think about it. It has changed EVERYTHING and reveals vital parts of the book in the first four minutes. Different characters, different plot, different ending. Only the basic story is the same, but that's like saying 'it's about a serial killer'. EVERYTHING is changed, this movie is definitely not based on F. Vargas book. In fact, it's the opposite for 75% of it.

Yet another entertaining policier from France and one of the last films made by the late and very much lamented Michel Serrault, which would be reason enough to see it but as it turns out that reason is superfluous because the film stands on its own two feet as an excellent thriller with an unusual storyline which begins with mysterious signs painted on doorways and embraces the introduction into Paris of bubonic plague to which no one is immune least of all cop Lucas Belvaux, taking a break from directing to play second lead here. Olivier Gourmet is a modern version of the old Town Crier - and though I go to Paris several times each year I've yet to see one, although that doesn't mean they don't exist - who collects letters daily and then reads them out publicly, unaware that they are being 'treated' with the plague virus. The mystery, of course, is Who and Why and we get there in the end but not before a well-balanced mixture of the cerebral and physical such as the sequence where a suspect escapes on roller blades and is pursued on foot and by car or the linking of the cerebral in the shape of Michel Serrault and the physical represented by Marie Gillain - in her third film in the salles this week - who almost chokes him to death before herself being pursued underneath the supports of a bridge from which she eventually plunges into the Seine. All in all a very satisfactory thriller.

Maybe I should balance my opinion but frankly, I don't find anything to like in this movie, although maybe a few good images of Paris but still... I didn't read the book, I hope it's only the adaptation that's bad... So, I found that: - the dialogs aren't great (not to say they suck), I sometimes felt like I was watching La Cité de la Peur (which is a very good comedy)... - bad acting. Garcia's tone is very weird, tough, neutral, emotionless, which could be fine but here it sounds like he's monotonously reading a script. And the sad thing is, Garcia's acting is among the best in the movie... - a really not so good mise en scène, with ridiculous situations - a bad scenario, at least not very credible. The ending is stupid (or, again, badly adapted)