Who Killed Bambi? (2003)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

The acting in this movie is really good.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Someone has clearly remarked to Laurence Lucas how much he resembles Monty Clift and on the strength of that Lucas has presumably checked out some of Clift's movies and seems hell bent on replicating Clift's tortured intensity. Not too much wrong with that except it's one thing to bear a physical resemblance to a great actor but quite another to BE a great actor. First-time director Gilles Marchand does Lucas no favours by casting him as a weirdo, a surgeon who, for reasons never made clear and/or explored, prefers his sexual encounters to be with nubile girls recovering from surgery. His method is slightly less crude than plying them with scotch and involves adding Pentol to their saline drips to effectively anaesthetize them and then diluting the Pentol with water and returning the vials to the drug cupboard with the result that patients begin waking up during surgery. Young trainee nurse Isabelle (Sophie Quinton) rumbles Dr Phillip (Lucas) but is initially attracted to him in what could have been an interesting complication but Marchand is totally inept in his handling of the plot and we are always two steps ahead of him and one step towards the exit.

"Who Killed Bambi?" is a subtitled French film all about Isabelle (aka Bambi), a surgical nurse in training in a hospital where strange things are happening to attractive female patients. As this somewhat plodding film wears on, Isabelle comes to suspect a surgeon of murder and the plot becomes a dangerous contest of wits between doctor and nurse. A visually stylish film with little to fault, the mounting tension is marginal and barely sufficient to qualify it as a thriller. Rather it is a somewhat tedious drama which a couple of peculiar dream-like scenes which seem like an after-thought and a conclusion which is anticlimactic and too long in coming. Nonetheless, there's enough substance to make this a worthwhile watch for those into French cinema who've seen the many better films of this genre. (B)

This movie is another good example of the 'How' prevailing over the 'What' in cinematic sense. I do agree with those who say that its denouement is plain and understand those who complain of the absence of climax but the question is - do we need a striking ending or a climatic revelation? Isabelle's gradual finding out that the charmingly monstrous Dr. Philipp is a psychopath is no surprise and the way the movie ends is no surprise either (which for some means the same as 'disappointing') but the unfolding of events, the characters' development and the quiet un-climatic finale - they all, in fact, are in great harmony with the tempo and atmosphere of the film which makes an absolutely hypnotizing effect.I wouldn't dare to call this movie a masterpiece or sensation but as a psychological thriller it is very sufficient. I totally loved the acting from both the lead characters, Sophie Quinton (Isabelle) is lovely and subtle in her innocent, pure, unstable fragility and Laurent Lucas (Dr. Philipp) is completely stunning: at one moment he's unemotional and nonchalant, interested and cunningly smiling at the other, devilishly attractive and abhorrent at the same time; through the whole film you so want to believe that he is a good and kind guy but the further the story goes the more repulsive and scary he becomes; this is actually the change Isabelle's own attitude towards him undergoes. I also liked the bizarre line of the plot's development; as it was mentioned in the comment from Charbax - weirdness is the main trait of this film, and it only benefits from it, not vise versa.The visual peculiarity of the film is its main merit (together with the acting). Beauty, strangeness and fear are perfectly conveyed through the set-design and fantastic cinematography. Music also adds a bunch to suspense slightly and eventually building up. Dream sequences, fainting fits, the snow-cleanness of the hospital and the stern darkness of the night, long corridors, lot of empty space - all is saturated with the atmosphere of unprotectedness and drowsiness which hangs in the air like an easily catchable aroma. Who cares for the plot and the dialogue when you can't get your eyes off the screen? What I find especially interesting about the film is its treatment of the 'Good seduced by Evil' question. Isabelle's being both attracted and scared by Dr. Philipp till the very end as if keeps you on your toes, you can't say for sure whether she falls or resists. I give this film 9 out of 10 and highly recommend watching it. On TV screen, by the way, it is much more enjoyable to see - alone, relaxed, with choked lights and an open mind.

A pretty dreadful French thriller in which a gifted scenarist may be learning how to direct. The 126 minutes' length hints of a genre-piece that can't stop itself: the director wrote twice as many fainting scenes, dream sequences, and face-offs between heroine-villain as any film could sustain, and then left in every damned one of them. Its only suspense lies in the gradually revealed nastiness of the director himself-- "He's not going to do THAT to his actors.... My God, he really IS." The casting and the peculiar violations of genre logic show vestiges of a much better movie than BAMBI. In a day full of interesting French films shown at Boston's MFA, this ringer, of course, turned out to be the only one secured for American distribution. You are seeing the Director's Cut on screen-- a case in which a Studio version of this frayed and rough-cut would be superior.