Un Illustre Inconnu Review

Crowned of the success of "Le Prénom", Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De Patellière could have continued stupidly in the same vein and get other easy successes by mixing comedy and filmed theater. They chose a different path by attacking a under-exploited genre in France: the thriller. The pitch must be sufficiently intriguing to draw in theaters but more difficult, the voltage must be sustained to the end and includes a lot of twists and turns to keep the audience under pressure and does not remove it from the story.
Too many movies have indeed an excellent starting point, supported by an attractive trailer , also manage to install a scary atmosphere, but because of a lack of a worked scenario, based on their argument and their climate and end up going in circles and become beautiful empty shells. This year Enemy of Denis Villeneuve has been a shining example.

The title and theme (identity theft) refer to "Un héros très discret" while icy atmosphere, elegant staging and disillusioned voiceover remind Assassin(s), two works performed (and directed for the second) by Mathieu Kassovitz. He is obviously the main attraction of the film, as his appearances as an actor are too rare and have never suffered from criticism and it was a great opportunity to expand his palette of play. He overcomes the difficulty very easily  is even bluffing as anelderly. During scenes where he plays both an old man and one who he will imitate you really believe seeing two actors giving the reply.

So we could expect a pretty nice  collection of fancy dress  of the main character, an excuse for a good acing performance without we never know his purpose and a story that ends as it began, that is, ie without explanation. So it's a pleasant surprise to see that the scenario was not sloppy and the film takes off from the second disguise, to settle in the hardcore thriller and mechanical manipulation of opinion . If the new director obviously has nothing to do with the master David Fincher and that it will attract the much less crowded theaters, Un Illustre Inconnu can bear comparison with Gone girl, the big year-end thriller at the level of twists in (perhaps) less predictable. We hope that it creates vocations in this country ...

Un illustre inconnu (2014)

118 min  |  Drama, Thriller 

Director:  Matthieu Delaporte

Writers:   Matthieu Delaporte (screenplay), 

               Alexandre de La Patellière (screenplay)

Stars:     Mathieu Kassovitz, Marie-Josée Croze,
              Éric Caravaca