The Killer (John Woo) & Paradis Paris (Marjane Satrapi)
This time I review two very different movies that take place in the city that recently hosted the Summer Olympics: Paris!
First up, John Woo’s The Killer is the fairly - and at times very - enjoyable remake of his own quite legendary movie from 1989.
The set-up is more or less the same, save for one important gender-swap. It’s now a woman, Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), who acts as the professional killer who grows a conscience when she has to kill a seemingly innocent young woman, Jenn (Diana Silvers) and refuses to do so.
Sam Worthington is Zee’s direct superior Finn, who sports a fruity Irish accent and slowly but surely becomes her mortal enemy. While Omar Sy plays likable police officer Sey who is, in his own words, ‘very good’ at his job, even though it’s clear there will be a lot of spilled blood before the movie is over.
It’s another ‘Bullet Ballet’ from one of the undisputed masters of the action genre. It’s also a clear case of style over substance, the new movie lacking the emotional depth of the original, but if you’re looking for Woo’s trademark flourishes, they are all there from split screen and slow motion to, yes, doves and/or pigeons.
Written by Brian Helgeland, Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, Paris serves as an attractive backdrop to proceedings, even if by now you don’t really need to end a movie with a shot of the Eiffel Tower to remind us of the fact.
Apparently, Woo has been working on the remake for a very long time, before Peacock finally gave him thirty million dollars to make it for the streamer (it’s in theaters in some other places, like The Netherlands, where I live). And Woo certainly knows how to make a fairly low amount of money - for an action movie - go a very long way.
Together with Hard Boiled I’d put the original Killer at the top of Woo’s Hong Kong movies. As for Woo’s Hollywood movies: the new version is nowhere near Face/Off, but it’s a marked improvement over last year’s Silent Night. It’s basically as good as Hard Target or Broken Arrow.
Worthington and Sy both get their moments to shine, but the star of the show is, not unexpectedly, Emmanuel, who is fast becoming one of Hollywood’s go-to action heroines.
‘Never send boys to do a woman’s job,’ Zee says at one point, and even though you could argue that gender swapping gets in the way of creating more original roles for women, I’d say that in this particular case, she is quite right.
I’m still not sure the world really needed an American remake of The Killer, but now it’s here at least it’s nothing to be ashamed of and taken at face value, it’s pretty good fun.
Note: The Killer is in theaters in some countries and on Peacock on others.
PARADIS PARIS
Paradis Paris (or: Dear Paris) is a multi-lingual ensemble comedy drama that also takes place in the City of Lights.
It’s a reasonably lighthearted affair, even if its main theme happens to be, well, death. But as it turns out, death is used to emphasize the importance of life and, I guess, love.
There is stuntman Mike (Ben Aldridge) who once dreamt of becoming an actor, and now has second thoughts about his chosen profession in which he faces serious injuries on a daily basis. Can he find a way to change direction? At least he finds an unexpected friend in make-up artist Badou (Gwendal Marimoutou).
There is an almost forgotten opera singer, Giovanna (Monica Bellucci), who is pronounced dead even when she isn’t. Will the confusion and possible attention set the stage for a comeback of sorts? Or should she just accept that the world has moved on and fall in love again with her conductor husband?
Most tragic (but also darkly and weirdly funny) is the story of school girl Marie-Cerise (Charline Balu-Emane) who wants to commit suicide after a sex video was leaked online. When she is about to jump in the water she is kidnapped by a freak (Thomas Bernier) but her hostage situation turns into a prolonged therapy session, with unexpected results.
Writer and director Marjane Satrapi - who co-wrote the movie with Marie Madinier - weaves five or six story strands together, with people from different walks of life and nationalities, with dialogue in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
Some story lines are more or less interconnected, while the connection between others remains more random. All stories have in common, though, that moments of crisis are intertwined with more reflective moments.
Yeah, life is full of tragedy, but at some point, well, you just have to move on, smell the flowers and look on the bright side of life. And frankly Paris, with all its ‘couleur locale’, is the right place to do just that!
Satrapi uses the mosaic technique that was used to great effect by Paul Thomas Anderson in his magnificent Magnolia, while Richard Curtis used it to create that classic romcom Love Actually.
Paradis Paris doesn’t quite reach those dizzy heights, but it is an enjoyable affair all the same.
Note: Paris Paradis is out now in a number of European countries, including Hungary and Germany. It will be released in The Netherlands next week.