What is bluntly visible in this French film is the American look. Actually it is not only the look - the whole approach taken by the film starting with its story and I dare say with its ideology, going through the rapid pace and crisp editing style and ending with the style of acting is borrowed from the American 'war on terror' movies. We even have some kind of a French equivalent of the CIA headquarters in this film. The most amazing things is however that the combination works. Philippe Haim is a talented director and his 'Secret Defense' is a good American thriller even if it is acted in French.Recruiting a young and sexy woman who finds herself in some kind of distress and turning her into a spy is a theme that we have already met in the classical Nikita, and original French film turned into an American movie and than successful TV series. The world of Secret Defense is however today's France and Middle East, and a parallel thread develops the background of an abused criminal who falls of dark side of the war on terror. The paths of the two characters are to meet inexorably, and we know it from almost from the beginning. The smart and unfortunately true idea of the script is that both the good girl and the bad guy are victims, paws, foot soldiers in war machines that confront each other and eventually crush everybody who falls under their wheels.The story has logic and the development of the main character played by Vahina Giocante is credible and does not lack an unexpected dose of sensitivity. There is one moment only when the accumulation of coincidences seemed to me to be hard to believe, but otherwise the story line and the excellent acting, the exact rendering of the various environments and the pace of action built upon interleaved threads contribute all to the good quality of a film that has an American look, and this time I am writing this appreciation on its positive meaning.

This is a very bleak and very well acted movie. It's about the war on terror, but has quite a few other elements to it. You will have more "fun" with the movie, if you read as little as possible about the story of the movie.Just be aware that the movie is a thriller and has a woman as a central character. It's morally moving on a thin ground, but this is what makes this movie really great. It kept me on my toes guessing, what will happen next. The performances are great and even if you dislike some characters, they are still very engaging and the movie might have some points, you might over think your views.

Right, I think the first issue is with the editing, pace was roughly there but it just seemed to stutter in places and when most of the actors seem to have come straight out of stage school the pace really needs to be right on the button(compare and contrast with the UK TV drama, Spooks).The story was weak and watered down, too many jumps without any suggestion, a poor script and direction also.Thirdly the female lead, Vahina Giocante, really should have been shown the door after the first week, too much overacting for me, I've seen comedians act better. However I haven't seen any of her other stuff though so it could have been just a duff one for her.Simon Abkarian has played measured bad guys before and did pretty well but I'm afraid that poor old Gérard Lanvin just didn't have enough script to go on, they spent too much time on the Martyr when they could have worked more on his character.Sorry I really had high hopes for this and really wanted to like it, I even watched it twice to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but remember this is my opinion I'm sure others will love it. they tried to take the Spooks concept and do a French big budget movie, perhaps they should have got a script re-write and got Mathieu Kassovitz to direct.

You can't of course copyright a title so if you are going to duplicate one a mere ten years old the least you can do is to be as different as possible. In the case of Secret Defense Jaques Rivette got their first in 1968 but there's not much chance of anyone turning out a film like Rivette so where that was a rambling discursive intellectual exercise this one is more a melange of John Le Carre and David Mamet involving cross and triple cross in the ongoing war against Islamic terrorists bent, as always, on making the rest of the world cry Allah. British television does much the same thing in its series Spooks', indeed one of your friendly neighbourhood terrorists here', Simon Akbarian, appeared in around 6 episodes of Spooks so presumably was able to phone it in for the big screen. Gerard Lanvin, more or less the only 'name' in the cast, is perfectly cast as the head honcho more than prepared to sacrifice his own personnel if and when required and it is, alas, required. Well worth catching.