Sets you up for Coacaine and Caviar......delivers Soggy Fries Instead For starters...I'm a big fan, I've been a fan since I became a movie buff in 2002, waiting patiently in line for the copy of Leon, La Femme Nikita etc etc to become available at the DVD library.
Luc Besson is the pioneer of mixing multiple genres Kitsch , Art House,Action, Drama, Comedy always with a view to commercialism.
All his trademarks are there, the car chase through an European City in an ordinary car, The Slap, Suave Calm but violent Sidekick, the Mexican Standoff with Classical Music, the claustrophobic action set, Love taking a backseat but always around.....etc etc
But If there's anything Luc Besson can do, its combine the feminine and the violent.
He can make the same woman in the same clothes look ugly once, beautiful immediately after, sometimes he does it at the same time, he has shown Scarlet Johansson in lingerie and still not stirred you sexually.
Its the same with violence, he glamorises it, but it repulses you at the same time, at other times the most grotesque act seems so cool.
He has his fare share of critics if but none will disagree when I say that Luc Besson understands human emotions, violence and women. Respect.
Despite the ridiculous plot(please don't go if you're going looking for plot holes and scientific logic), the actors have remained true to their work, ranging from honest to flashes of brilliance.
Scarlet Johansson though I've maintained just doesn't have the versatility to play such roles, but she adds that glamour than unknown actresses just cant.
Technically Luc Besson has been and will always remain brilliant, and analysis of this aspect of his movies can fill pages.
In the end though I would like to describe my experience from this movie with the shortest of short illustrations.
You go into a Chefs Signature Restaurant, you're super excited, your friends who don't know of him less so, but some of your enthusiasm has rubbed of on them and besides everyone in the restaurant does their job well and your waitress is smoking hot.
He serves up signature dishes in the earlier course, stirring up all the areas of your tongue and taste buds, indeed even stirring up a whole range of emotions in everyone's body.
Everyone is anxiously waiting for a fitting finale , everything is ripe for it, the musicians in the restaurant are building up a crescendo , your expecting, Foie de Gras , Cocaine and Caviar, Dal cooked for days bye a blind , deaf cripple.......
The music is building....wait for it...
The credit card and rolled paper comes in.....wait for it...
The feel somewhere a salmon is being pulled from a fish tank...wait for it.....
In the background you can see the dying old lady, stirring Dal ...wait for it....
And then you get served Soggy Fries....
The vagaries of human thought doesn't allow us to enjoy such an experience no matter how good the earlier courses were, if you've built yourself up for something and that doesn't happen, than almost nothing that happened along the way will matter.
This my friend sums up my experience in the movie.
-s Finalle will soon be included in the definition of #epicfail and damp squib.
+/-s scarlet Johansson , ridiculous plot (sometimes too much even for me despite expecting it).
+s Technically Luc Besson, signatures et all, Cast remains true.
4/10...this discounts my epic disappointment as a fan, if your not a movie buff or a fan than you could probably add another star.