An Irish girl hires a group of mercenaries to steal a mysterious silver case (the contents of which are never divulged). As they do however, one of their number double-crosses the rest and steals the case for himself. The remaining group spend the next third of the film chasing him down before another double-cross means the case changes hands again, leaving two of the original group trying to catch up with a whole bunch of people.
The action is realistic and kept simple - there aren't any massive CGI-laden sequences, everything is done old school with stunt men and choreographers. This shows in the two car chases. The first one is good, featuring an Audi S8 chasing a Citroen XM and an old Mercedes taxi chasing the pair of them... It starts on a country road, goes cross country for a while, before ending up on the narrow cobbled streets of a French town. This chase is good. However, better is to come with the second chase much later on in the movie. This one features an old BMW M5 being chased by a Peugeot 406. This sounds silly, but it works brilliantly - mainly because of the techniques used to keep the action and realism at a high level. The film makers built rigs hanging off the back of the cars where the stunt drivers could drive from whilst the actors sat in the cars using fake steering wheels. They also used right-hand drive cars with fake left-hand steering wheels so the looks of concentration and downright terror on the actors faces during some of the chase sequences are absolutely real. They also choreographed the chases brilliantly, using on-coming traffic and perfect timing to leave tiny gaps between cars. There is almost no speeding up effects used, just good old fashioned stunts. This means the second chase ends up being one of the most exciting ever committed to film.
The whole double-crossing espionage plot is OK, and is really helped by a number of excellent actors (especially Jean Reno and Stellan Skarsgård) and a gritty realism. The star of the show is that chase sequence though.
An under-rated movie, worth a watch.
My rating: 6.7 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.2 / 10
Running time: 122 mins
IMDB link
