Second Wind (Le Deuxieme Souffle) [DVD]

Although the opening prison break scene promised much, this film rapidly went downhill when the gang of rival "heavies" stormed into the club run by Monica Bellucci, guns blazing and clad in square-shouldered overcoats and pork pie hats. I was immediately put in mind of the similar French gangsters satirised in Sylvain Chomet's animated film "The triplets of Belleville." From this point on, it was difficult not to look at the film as a cartoon strip re-imagined for cinema.

Whilst I am in agreement that this film was amazingly stylish, it was a shame that the script and screenplay never quite matched the attention given to the lighting of this film. The pictures certainly look beautiful even if the dominance of dark reds and greens eventually grates and the few outdoor, daylight scenes seem to be shot through a sepia lens which gives a burnished, golden quality to these elements of the film. Irritatingly, much of the story takes place at night or in semi-darkness. In the end, you find yourself yearning to see other colours - there are only about three instances throughout the film where we seen anything that is blue in colour and one of these is in a seascape painting hanging on a wall! Visually, the film is very fatiguing. All of this could be forgiven if the film was actually any good. Daniel Auteuil seems to be a great actor who frequently appears in films which somehow aren't quite as good as they should be. "36" is a good example, even if it is much better than this effort. The problem with "The Second wind" is that for nearly an hour it is difficult to really understand what is happening. We know Auteil's character has escaped from prison with the police on his trail and an inter-gang feud is about to explode with the fugitive's return. Whilst this might seem to have all the ingredients of a great film, the dialogue is pedestrian and the characters so stereo-typical that they are initially hard to distinguish. The film's pace is also painfully slow and drawn out. In the end, the outcome is definately not worth the wait.

Effectively, this film is little better than a cartoon and perhaps over reverential in it's attempt to pay hommage to an earlier era of film-making. In the past, films like "LA confidential" have plugged very much into the same sentiments and come up trumps. I really wanted this film to be something special but it is a classic case of "style over substance." The action scenes are few and far between, the dialogue often risable and the performance of Eric Cantona mumbling expressionlessly through his lines is indicative of why a return to football with the New York Cosmos is a far better prospect for him than acting. He is staggeringly poor. For a great and truly exciting French crime film, the two-part "Mesrine" has raised the bar for all cinema and sadly "The second wind" falls well short of this. Bruno Coulais' moody, atmospheric score to this film is worth the extra star but,all in all, this film felt like a huge let down.

French director Alain Corneau spent so much of the latter years of his career making mood and character pieces that don't really go anywhere that it's all too easy to forget he started out making thrillers. From the poor critical and box-office reaction to his 2007 version of Le Deuxieme Soufflé, or The Second Wind as it's called on UK DVD, he might have regretted going back to his old stamping ground for what would be his penultimate film, especially after the unflattering comparisons with Jean-Pierre Melville's 1966 version of Jose Giovanni's novel, but it's a surprisingly effective thriller on its own terms. While it's relatively unusual to see him handling a story with a distinct beginning, middle and end these days, he responds surprisingly well to the pulp material and even improves on some aspects of Melville's version. Whereas Melville's film, not one of his best by any stretch of the imagination, was a few set pieces the director was interested in and a lot of exposition he wasn't, Corneau's version (co-written by Giovanni) feels like a more complete narrative that has its director's complete attention throughout and one that doesn't outstay its welcome at two-and-a-half hours.

The film's biggest hurdle is its usually reliable leading man. A miscast Daniel Auteuil convincingly conveys the out of shape and past it aspect of his escaped con looking for a big score to fund his getaway only to find himself set up as an informer and desperate to clear his name but, despite looking surprisingly like a shrunken Lino Ventura in a couple of sequences, lacks the iconic presence the part really needs and never really comes into his own until the last third. We learn more about the character from the way other characters describe him than we ever get out of his performance, resulting in a nominal leading man who never really lives up to his constant buildup ("In this rotten world, he has the guts to accept what he does - the supreme elegance of a lost man. Gu signs his crimes," "He has the luxury of having nothing to lose while we just dabble in felony"). While the discrepancy between what he was, what he is now, how others see him and how he sees himself is intentional, Auteuil still comes up short because you simply can't imagine him ever being the stuff of underworld legend.

Far more convincing is Eric Cantona, a credibly thuggish presence as a loyal partner in crime - he doesn't need to be a great actor because his look and his bearing does all the work for him. But then this is a film where the supporting characters are often more interesting than the anti-hero. Despite a disappointing opening scene that pales beside Paul Meurisse's showstopping entrance in Melville's film, Michel Blanc soon makes the part of the world-weary flic on Auteuil's trail his own, while Jacques Dutronc brings more depth to the stylish but noncommittal intermediary Orloff than is probably on the page. Daniel Duval's wonderfully named thief Venture Ricci and Philippe Nahon's brutal cop have less to work with but still manage to make an impression, though the best that can be said for Monica Bellucci's moll is that while she may not be particularly good she's not particularly bad enough to be a problem.

It doesn't reach the epic heights you sense it might be aspiring to but the professional violence and the setpieces are well handled, with the big heist (now taking place in a warehouse district rather than a country road) particularly effective. We also get to see the infamous water torture sequence that caused so many censorship problems in the previous adaptation this time, though the hiding the guns sequence that made such an impression on John Woo is missing this time round. It's more stylised than Melville's film, with dreamlike slow motion in some scenes and an unreal color scheme of simultaneously saturated but slightly sickly reds, greens and amber throughout looking more like a Jeunot and Caro film or the kind of unreal color of a 60s comic book than the classic noir or neo-noir look. The film only changes to natural color in the film's closing shot as the public - a few indistinct innocent bystanders notwithstanding. otherwise unseen for the entire movie - return to reclaim the scene of the crime, oblivious to the violence that took place there as they go about their everyday lives as if in a parallel world. And while, at the end of the day the film may not have much more to say than that criminals live in a different and more exaggerated world to the rest of us, if you take it as simply a decent thriller that's probably enough.

Optimum's UK PAL DVD has a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with English subtitles. the only extra is the trailer.

Longtime gangster Gustave Minda(Daniel Auteuil)escapes from prison and returns to Paris only to find old friend Manouche(Monica Bellucci)being targeted by a bar owner for reasons that become apparent.Minda decides to help settle a score as well as setting one up before he flees to Italy and retirement.
Handsome production values somewhat overshadow this old fashioned,overheated remake of J P Melville's 1966 Le Deuxieme Souffle which lacks all the subtlety of the original but makes up for it with an energetic approach that after a clumsy opening half hour develops into an engrossing piece of work with sporadic bursts of violence.
Bellucci is a beauteous decoration again(Blonde this time but can she act worth a damn?),Auteuil going outside his usual cool,melancolic detatchment is just okay for him but Jacques Tutronc as a wide headed wiseguy and Michel Blanc as the cunning Inspector Blot get all the best lines and consequently give the best performances.
Director Alain Corneau invokes some of Melville's pet themes - criminal professionalism and rigid codes of honour - in the final act which is steeped in fatalism for cool/desperate criminals.
Long but never boring.