Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Albert Dupontel, Marie Guillard, Marthe Keller, Melanie Thierry, Claude Perron, Alain Figlarz, Smadi Wolfman, Patrick Bauchau, Guy Lecluyse | Written by Julien Leclerq, Nicolas Peufaillit, Franck Philippn, Aude Py
UK certification 15 | UK certification 15 | UK RRP £12.99 | DVD Region 2
Runtime 94 minutes | Directed by Julien Leclerq
Another one of those decent films that strangely goes straight to DVD, Chrysalis is an intriguing, well-made tale straddling the police thriller and sci-fi genres. As such — and maybe this is the reason it never got a shot at the big screen over here — it does look like a combination of many movies, from Equilibrium to Minority Report, with a sprinkling of The Matrix and Face/Off. However, as a 90-minute DVD diversion? You won't complain.
Hoffman (the hang-dog Dupontel) is a gung-ho French copper on the trail of Nicolov (Figlarz), a violent killer. For Hoffman, the search is personal: Nicolav killed his wife and colleague Sarah (the brilliantly named Wolfman). However, as he and his new partner Marie (Guillard) discover, there's much more to the case than a psychopath on the streets of the near-future Paris and a desperate search for a missing illegal immigrant believed to be his next victim. Interspersed with this storyline is the tale of a surgeon (Keller) whose daughter Manon (Thierry) was badly injured in a car crash. Manon is now recuperating in her mother's clinic, but there's something odd about her treatment. Clearly there's a link between the two stories but what? The answer is the futuristic twist at the film's heart. And it's an alarmingly believable one about memory control.
Leclerq's film, while derivative, marks him out as a man to watch. The chase scenes are exciting, the fights — choreographed by the stocky Figlarz — are thrilling and the film itself, with its washed out blue and grey tones, is simultaneously cool and bleak. When you look at some of the dross that gets released at the cinema, it's always puzzling why nobody championed a film like this but hey, that's the film business. If you're looking for a thought-provoking, well put together slice of action, Chrysalis is as good a bet as many films out there.
EXTRAS ** Just the basics — a making-of feaurette and the trailer.