Cedric Kahn's movie 'Red Lights' begins as a domestic drama, and one featuring an exceptionally unattractive couple at that: she, controlling and indifferent while he is stubborn and stupid. But after the pair separate during a long drive, the film enters darker territory. The film's structure is one some ways the reverse of that of a conventional thriller, with violent climax, nightmare, and moral redemption occurring in scrambled order: the film works because the viewer can never be certain that the worst is over. Although the initial portrayals are crude (with hindsight, one can say deliberately so), the acting strengthens as the plot thickens, avoiding melodrama and conjuring a mood of increasingly real terror. The cinematography is good as well: night-time roads have not looked this scary since 'Taxi Driver'.

How many Simenon 's novels have been transferred to the screen? Probably more than you can think of for there were already plenty of them in the thirties.Some were even remade(Duvivier's masterpiece "Panique" was remade as "M.Hire" ).In 2004,it's funny to see Simenon's characters using computers.This movie owes a lot to its two actors:the always reliable Darroussin and Carole Bouquet who in fact has only a supporting part,her male co-star being on the screen twice as long as her.A couple whose marriage seems on the rock hit the road .They are to pick up their children in their holiday camp.This is a road movie ,the action taking place around a highway between Paris , Tours and Poitiers and ending in Chatellerault.The man has become a heavy drinker cause he knows his wife does not love him anymore .She disappears in the night.He is told she's taken a taxi to get to the railway station to travel by train.The desperate husband takes a(not very sweet) hitch- hiker aboard .At dawn,it seems that something very horrible happened during the night.It does not really renew Simonesque adaptations (and I must admit I could name at least ten films better than this one,even if I did not include the excellent Gabin/Maigret/Delannoy films of the fifties) but it's a good film ,depicting a bleak inhuman highway ,high anxiety (Darroussin gives at least ten phone calls in ten minutes),and proof positive that from evil,something which looks like love can be born again.

"Feux rouges" is an interesting thriller about a man searching for his wife. The plot turns when he meets a criminal and takes him up with his car on a night trip to Bordeaux. The film is thrilling until the end because you do not know what happens next. The audience is misled by some red herrings that could have been pulled out by Hitchcock. The herrings are no plot holes because the whole film is a dream. It begins with the man sitting in a bar waiting for his wife. Imagine you put this scene at the end of the movie with the man waking up out of a short sleep. It also explains the improbable happy ending and the dreamlike pictures of the night trip.Nevertheless, it could have been a better movie. Based on a story by Georges Simeon it lacks of character building. The characters are one-sided and not very likable. Underacting is sometimes part of the film noir, unfortunately it does not work here.

When I see a movie being compared to the works of Hitchcock, it is my duty as a film buff to go out and watch it. But even if you were too put all expectations aside, I'm sure you would find a film with a solid idea, great acting, and some very suspenseful sequences, but also a film filled with plot holes and an unsatisfying ending.The film begins with a French couple going on a car ride to pick up their kids. The man Antoine (superbly acted by an actor I can't remember)has been drinking and during their trip he and his wife Helene (also great, but does not have as much screen time) bicker about how Antoine is not treated like a man. He stops for another drink, whereupon his wife says she will leave if he steps out. Antoine takes the keys and goes out for a drink, but his wife is gone, leaving him a note that she has taken the train. These first 20 minutes provide an excellent set-up, but things really start to crumble from here.I know its great to have the audience know more than the character does, but don't make the character so stupid that it takes him 45 minutes to figure out what we already knew in 5. The hitchhiker Antoine picks up should have worn a sign that said "I am an escaped convict" to save us half the film of watching Antoine pour his heart out. Also, there are so many red herrings that I began to have the most absurd theories (why is his hand in his pocket? is the killer alive? what has Antoine been doing before he crashed? is this even real?!?!?). Regardless, there are still some nail-biting scenes here, two that strike me as particularly unnerving: the ten-minute telephone sequence that is just perfect, and Antoine's nightmare that had me literally jump out of my seat.But you forget how intense this movie was because the ending contains no real payoff. Yes, I know its not supposed to be about suspense. Yes, I know we should have to analyze it because it is deceptively happy. But unlike a similar but better French thriller "Swimming Pool", this movie wraps up all the terrible events in such a pat ending that you can see it in two different ways: an analysis of one man's primal psyche that is marketed as a thriller (this is what it's supposed to be about), or merely a thriller. In the end, this movie barely gives you room to analyze. And when you do reach the conclusion (if you bother to analyze at all), its not really a message that stays with you."Red Lights" is a nice diversion with great acting and some good suspense, but one can't look at a movie in pieces. Whereas great psychological thrillers are like Rubix cubes, this one simply takes a bunch of random puzzle pieces, wraps it up in shoddy paper, and forces you to figure it out, even though the pieces don't quite fit.