Review by Nick Wheatley
Stars Jean Reno, Marina Fois, Kad Merad, Gabriella Wright, Richard Berry, Daniel Lundh,
Fani Kolarova, Moussa Maaskri | Written by Richard Berry, Mathieu Delaporte & Alexandre de la Patelliere
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £17.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 117 minutes | Directed by Richard Berry
The revenge genre has been done to death, pun intended. We’ve seen all sorts of characters journey down a relentless path of death and destruction to right a wrong through extreme measures many times before. In recent years we have had an abundance of this genre arrive in theatres such as Taken and Edge of Darkness as well as many others. To stand out in this genre you need to have a new formula to follow or have a new angle on our tragic anti-hero. Unfortunately 22 Bullets has neither of those.
The film has a typical Godfather-inspired gangster story at its core with a retired French crime boss, Charly Mattei, living a peaceful life with his family in Marseille. But of course his criminal counterparts won’t forgive or forget. Charly is attacked in a car park and miraculously manages to survive a brutal assassination containing the namesakes 22 bullets. After recovering, Charly embarks upon a deadly rampage, taking out every member of the gang involved in the hit, eventually tracking down the head of this corrupted group.
The plot is simple to predict as the film progresses, leaving us with little excitement to draw from the script but at least the action scenes get us excited right? Sorry no luck there, even The Transporter style action is lacking in originality or creativity. So are there any positives to this conventional film? Yes, there is one, Jean Reno. Reno not only is incredibly watchable even with some poor dialogue at times but manages to increase the tension and drama that the film is sorely lacking. He even raises the game of his fellow cast members when performing alongside them. It’s the scenes without Reno that are lacking but the fault does not rest solely with the actors, the script is also to blame. The only other actor to earn some credit is Marina Fois, who also has some excellent moments as a detective on the trail of Charly.
The tone and pace of the film differentiates drastically from one scene to the next with no consistency over the whole movie. At times this film is a dark and intense story with a young boy even seeing an adult blown away in front of him, but at other times it feels like more of a light action film. Plus the speed of the storytelling moves from a snails pace with overlong shots and lengthy character moments to other scenes with frantic intense action. The score by Klaus Badelt is excellent in places but also is misused by the director in an attempt to get us excited about very slow non-events.
So there really wasn’t much promise from this dull action fest, which expects it’s audience to be engaged by the mere loading of a gun. It’s the character behind it that grips an audience and barring Reno these characters didn’t strike a chord. This may be due to the ridiculous decisions these characters make such as the lead detective only realising towards the end of the film that she may be able to track down Charley through his family or Charley deciding to crawl through an endless field of barbed wire to reach his son rather than maybe bring wirecutters.
By the end of the film I was not even concerned by the conclusion and was just glad that Reno peaked my interest occasionally throughout the movie. This was a case of one man standing leagues above his peers but it may be considered a guilty pleasure for Reno fans. Billed as the return of the professional, I wish he’d have stayed at home.
EXTRAS ★★★ 22 Bullets in Marseille (documentary), The Making of (documentary), Interviews, 2 trailers.