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Released by: Breaking Glass Pictures
Released on: March 26, 2013.
Director: Kris McManus
Cast: Celia Muir, Lee Cheney, James Privett, Kate Loustau, Darren Bransford
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
This is one that, for better or worse, wears its influences plainly on its sleeve (literally, the sleeve of the DVD says 'Tarantino meets Ritchie'). The better? If you like Tarantino and Ritchie, this movie is for you, as it apes their respective styles fairly effectively and tells a decent story with some interesting characters and a lot of style. The worse? Indy filmmakers need to stop aping Tarantino and Ritchie and work harder to find their own unique voice.
The movie follows Charles (Brian Levine), a hitman with plenty of cash and a pretty serious case of germophobia. When he buys himself a fancy new pad in Cannes, he doesn't want to clean it up himself and so he hires a beautiful cleaning woman named Lisa (Celia Muir) to do it for him. The plan is that by the time he gets back from a trip to take out his final target, he'll arrive back home to a clean house and be able to enjoy his retirement in peace. Charles makes the kill, finishes the job, and then decides before heading home that he's going to go and buy a yacht so that when he meets the girl of his dreams, he'll be able to travel around the world with her. He hasn't met her yet, but maybe she's Lisa.
This is a great plan except for the fact that while Charles is doing his yacht thing, two brothers, Raymond (James Privett) and Simon (Lee Cheney), get the loot out of the trunk of his car and make off with it. Not surprisingly, given that he is a professional killer and all, Charles gives chase, which leaves Lisa and her boyfriend, Denny (Darren Bransford), plenty of time to scam would be tenants out of the money they're talked into spending on the rent for Charles' now empty house. Complicating matters even more is the presence of a sex lesbian assassin named Clancy (Kate Loustau) who has arrived in Cannes with a score to settle with Charles.
Dead In France loads on the quirky. Charles is a germ freak who is nothing short of awkward in social settings. Lisa has a thick Cockney accent but fits in well in France somehow, while Clancy likes girls, presumably because girls are hotter than guys - she's just a lesbian for the sake of having a hot lesbian in the movie. Raymond is dimmer than dim and exploited by his far more intelligent brother Simon, while Denny seems fairly devious until he finds one of Charles' guns in the house and his character shifts. All of these quirky types talk in fast, snappy exchanges loaded with profanity while the plot loads on the twists and back stabbings as fast as you could hope for. It's well done, particularly when you consider the budget, but it also positively cannot step far enough out from under the shadow of the films that inspired it to find its own niche. The movie even goes so far as to use irritating text introductions under each character as they appear for the first time in the movie - The Hitman when we meet Charles, The Cleaner when we meet Lisa - you get the idea, because you've seen it done before.
The movie makes nice use of its French locations and contains some surprisingly graphic violence that succeeds in punctuating the harder aspects of the storyline with some serious impact. The cinematography is good and the black and white compositions are often striking. The movie also has a really impressive score that works well and compliments the action, the characters and the drama. Had this been even slightly more original than it is, Dead In France would absolutely be worth seeing as it's been made by some people with quite a bit of talent. That makes it all the more of a shame then that everything in the script is ridiculously derivative to the point where it almost comes across as parody.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The black and white 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on the DVD is a good one, offering solid detail for an SD presentation and more or less devoid of heavy compression artifacts. There is a bit of shimmer in a few spots but otherwise this is a clean, stable image that shows good contrast and strong black levels.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix - there are no alternate language options or subtitles provided though English closed captioning is available. Surrounds are used primarily during the shootout scenes and to open up the score a bit so they're not particularly active during the more dramatic moments of the movie. Things sound just fine, however, with properly balanced levels and clean sounding dialogue ensuring that everything is easy to understand. Forced English subtitles appear on screen for the dialogue that is spoken in French.
Extras include roughly ten minutes of Deleted Scenes, a twelve minute Gag Reel, a still gallery, two trailers for the feature and trailers for a few other Breaking Glass Pictures DVD releases. Menus and chapter stops are also provided.
The Final Word:
Well made on a technical level, this is glossy, slick and oh so hip it hurts. If you worship at the altar of Tarantino and Ritchie it'll be right up your alley. If you want something a little more fresh and a little more original than that, no dice. However Breaking Glass have, to their credit, done a nice job on the DVD.
