WHAT’S IT ABOUT
After escaping an attempted murder, Franck Lazarev must find his wife Leo, who has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of armed men. He is caught up with his past and plunged into a state affair that is beyond his control.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
You know those movies that grab you right away but then leave you hanging? Netflix’s French action flick Ad Vitam is exactly that kind of tease. The opening scene really pulls you in – we’ve got this elite police officer, Franck Lazarov (Guillaume Canet), and his pregnant wife, Léonore (Stéphane Caillard), coming home to find their place completely ransacked. They don’t seem too upset about it since it’s the second break-in just within a two-week period, and all they took was Frank’s laptop. And that just seemed fishy, right? Stop that! We’re talking about Frank, and he’s supposed to be just this yolo guy who repairs bricks up really high walls for his bread and butter. But man, wait till you see this guy perform. He’s got those slim tricks where he’s flinging around himself like a Mission: Impossible movie, rappelling down buildings like Spider-Man and chasing bad guys through the streets of Paris. The opening ten minutes, I suppose, are simply fantastic. It’s packed with vertigo, sweat up on your palm, and a really intense fistfight in a tight space that really gets your heart racing. But then – and this is where things get frustrating – the movie hits the brakes. Hard. Instead of keeping that awesome momentum going, director Rodolphe Lauga decides to throw us into this endless spiral of flashbacks that just won’t quit. I’m talking looong stretches where we have to sit through Franck’s police training (complete with those cheesy training montages we’ve seen a million times), watch him meet-cute with Léonore, hang out with his ridiculously good-looking buddy Ben (Nassim Lyes), and spend time with this other couple, Nico and Manon. I get it – they’re trying to make us care about these relationships. But honestly? It just feels like they’re killing time. The real reason is that by the time we finally get back to the present-day story – you know, the actually interesting part about Léonore getting kidnapped – it’s like, “Wait, why should I care again?” The movie tries to make up for lost time with some bonkers action sequences near the end. And let me tell you about the craziest part: Franck chasing down bad guys in a powered parasail over Paris. Like, what? It’s so over-the-top it feels more like something out of a video game than a serious action movie. You can tell they were going for this mix of Taken (remember how intense that was?) and Mission: Impossible’s wild stunts. But they have a problem. They spend so much time stuck in what feels like a post-rendition of a film student’s final project that it completely kills the mood. And don’t even get me started on the political conspiracy stuff they try to throw in. It’s like they took a perfectly simple story and decided to run it through a complexity machine just for fun. Guillaume Canet, who’s usually pretty solid, seems kind of lost here. The role needs someone with that Liam Neeson-style intensity, you know? That “I will find you, and I will kill you” energy. Instead, we get something that feels more like “I will find you… after I finish this flashback sequence.” Here’s the thing – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making a straightforward action movie. Look at The Raid – that movie is basically just people fighting for two hours, and it’s incredible! But Ad Vitam can’t seem to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. It’s trying to be this deep, emotional drama about brotherhood and loyalty, but then it’s also trying to be this high-octane action thriller, and it ends up not really succeeding at either. The end result is like that friend who keeps telling you they’re about to do something amazing but then just shows you their vacation photos instead. It’s not terrible – there are definitely some cool moments sprinkled throughout. But man, it could have been so much better if they’d just picked a lane and stayed in it. As it stands, it’s the kind of movie you might watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and then completely forget about by dinner time.
OUR RATING – A PICK A LANE 3