I love Jean Reno. He just has that air about him that makes a great detective.Here he plays a retired police detective that was drummed out under mysterious circumstances, or was he? He teams up with a Police Captain (Jocelyn Quivrin) to solve some mysterious gruesome murders in Paris.In the meantime, some nefarious things are going on with the police and the military that involve a policeman's wife (Arly Jover).Nothing is what it seems in this film. You are constantly surprised and reassessing who to cheer for. While things seem to tie together at the end, there are still questions.Great direction by Chris Nahon, who did Kiss of the Dragon. Great cinematography and music, and great acting, especially by Jean reno.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film and have also wondered about the negative reviews. The movie has two problems 1) a problem of perception: it starts off looking like a fairly routine mystery / police procedural, but elements of other kinds of movies begin to trickle in as the plot reveals itself -- which may have confused some reviewers wanting a pure genre piece, 2) the plot IS a little hard to follow in places and depends on one important coincidence in particular. However, the overall story makes sense in a "gestalty" kind of way and I don't think it's a killer issue. Oh, and 3) the English dub (which I turned on a couple of times) should be confiscated and burned. It's a fairly good dub in syncing the lips, but the voicing is as inappropriate as any bad dub of a Japanese film. For Pete's sake, hire a mimic next time you dub an actor as well-known as Reno.But I take real issue with the critics who labeled as "ridiculous" this or that aspect of the film. People have given high marks to James Bond films that stretched belief far more painfully. The real issue is that the French filmmakers aren't telegraphing the genre to the viewers. Good for them.Offsetting any problems is the wonderfully mysterious setup that ends in a real surprise about 40 minutes into the picture. That's the point when the picture shifts gears and we start seeing the "action/adventure" film which is quite well done.

Although this movie is in French and dubbed in English, the most important thing required to enjoy this movie is using the English subtitles even though the speech is in English...the voice over seems to be competing with the background movie sound (rain, music) so it is difficult to make out the conversations without it.The movie is a bit difficult to follow during the first portion of the movie, but that alone is usually a positive for me as this isn't a movie whose plot is known 10 minutes into the movie. The movie takes place predominantly in France, so the scenery is pleasant. Due to the voice over, the dialog is sub par but the pace and mystery of the movie is very good and the story line isn't bad for a thriller type movie.The biggest disappointment for me was not having Jean Reno dub his own voice, but other than that, I did enjoy the movie.

My husband, who's french, commented at the end of the movie: "Of all the things I don't get about about this film, the biggest one is why Jean Reno signed on to do it." It's entertaining enough if you compare it to other sub-grade action flicks. What it's not is a Fifth Element, Mission Impossible, The Professional, Face-Off, Bourne Anything, Heat, or anything remotely decent in between, altho it aspires to be all... but falls short of not-even-close. So if you're looking to be wowed in the french-movie-action sense, skip it. Best time to put it on? Muted during a party when everyone else is busy doing something else... the gunshooting and flashbacks make for good lighting.