36 [Blu-ray]

Former cop Olivier Marchal's classy French policier has in its favour it has two great performers on top form in Daniel Auteuil and, especially, Gerard Depardieu (who gives surprising depth to what appears to be a seriously underwritten part consisting mainly of troubled glances) and the neatest set of moral bear traps to face a movie cop since the original Insomnia as the two veterans compete for a promotion held out as the prize for bringing in a dangerous gang of armed robbers with disastrous consequences. Yet while the performances are strong and the script better than average for the genre, the musical score is a major problem that unfortunately works so strongly against the film that it ends up drowning many of its good points. It's not that the main theme is bad, but does it HAVE to be used without variation in almost every single scene in the last two thirds of the picture? Sadly, this is by no means an exaggeration, and the repetition does the film no favours.

A US remake with a no-doubt sleepwalking Robert De Niro has long been in the offing, but while you're waiting, Tartan's BluRay boasts a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, though for no good reason the removeable subtitles are presented over the image area rather than in the black border below. Worse, while the BluRay offers a good selection of extras carried over from the DVD release (including an exclusive 9-minute interview with the director), the making of documentary and trailers have absurdly had the image reduced so that even using the zoom option on the TV settings wouldn't make the image reach the sides of many a fullscreen TV set let alone a widescreen one. No new extras have been added for the UK BluRay, with Marchal's audio commentary, the 69-minute documentary and other extras from the more comprehensive French 2-disc DVD release (which only has English subtitles on the feature itself) still missing.

As one should expect in general with European movies, they are far better from any other production, especially the US ones. A gripping thriller, tough and very well structured in terms of screenplay and cinematography. The main actors are at the height of their acting careers with such realistic performances. Running almost 2 hours, the movie will challenge the viewer til its epic end.

Thouroughly enjoyed this move. Bought it on a whim as I've seen a few French thrillers of late and found them to be mostly enjoyable. Gerard D' in fine despicable form. Nicely tied up at the end. If you enjoyed Mesrine, you should like this.