Customer Reviews

The Last Deadly Mission

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me first say this film was released as MR73 then sadly renamed here in the U.S. which almost prevented me from renting let alone buying. This film is very violent and disturbing with a very good cast, acting and storyline. A Detective investigates a series of brutal murders while dealing with demons of his own. This is all I will say as I do not want to ruin anything. Very well-made! This is an awesome French Thriller. Don't miss it!

This is another amazing movie from Olivier Marchal. It's dark,hopeless, the caracters are on the edge.You won't find that in a sleek cold american movie!
What a performance for each actor.
I'd like so much the show "Braquo" from the same director Olivier Marchal translated in english.

What an endlessly stupid title for an immensely great movie.
This movie is the sequel to the "36 Quai Des Orfèvres" which suffers an equally sad name butchering in the American name "The 36th Precinct" which is of course totally wrong because 36 is the precinct building house number in the street, not the number of the district.

Olivier Marchal never disappoints, and this movie is no different.

Although it was 36 Quai des Orfevres that got the critical acclaim and the international release, it's Olivier Marchal's unrelated follow-up MR 73 (it's a make of handgun) that's the more impressive of the two. Rather than the double act of Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu as cops at self-destructive loggerheads, this focuses on Auteuil's alcoholic cop, a broken man being buried alive surrounded by people leading lives of quiet desperation in the aftermath of the crimes and tragedy that are his daily bread.

Despite being released directly to video-on-demand in the US by the cash-strapped Weinstein Company under the actionably misleading title The Last Deadly Mission, this isn't a vigilante fantasy where good cops are let down by the system but a drama where bad cops fighting each other, secure in the knowledge that the worst will be covered up, is the real problem. In that context the unconvincing opening sequence where Auteuil's drunken cop hijacks a bus to take him home makes at least some sense: with the IAD more interested in covering up to protect the department's image, the system only punishes its own when they try to do the right thing. And it's trying to do the right thing, following a hunch and trying to get his life back on track, that has disastrous consequences here because he's simply no longer up to the job...

Based on a real case which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the French police, this has a real insider's feel for the despair that comes with doing the job too long, making it a harder sell at the box-office despite the odd well-handled moments of violence but also a surprisingly engrossing drama. It helps that Marchal doesn't repeat some of the mistakes that let down parts of his debut: in particular Bruno Coulais' score doesn't drown the film like Erwann Kermorvant and Axelle Renoir's monothematic wall-to-wall scoring in 36 but is simply there when needed. It's not entirely successful - the rebirth metaphor at the end is a bit clumsy, though that can be taken as irony in a film relentlessly charting one man's destruction of himself - but at its best it has a gravity and a power that hasn't been seen in cop movies for years.

First of all: I didn't really like this movie, and I wanted to.

Daniel Auteuil, the genre, a serial... But no, when I saw the clichés
piling up it reminded me of another French tank policier which turned
out to be pulp... yes, "36 Quai des Orfebrès". Luckily I hadn't found
out on IMDb that they were issued by the same director. If "real life
cop experience" makes you put a wife left in coma from "an accident", a
child victim from a family murderer, who cries all the time (sometimes
flooding) is herself a victim of a bad job, bad relationships with her
boyfriend and sister, wait until you see his grandfather die (she sobs
again), all her pregnancy, including two stressful events, then
childbearing, on camera, long shots of her sweating, then the child's
face on camera... What does it have to do with the story? Do we need
this to elicit some automatic empathy for any character? If we want to
watch a silly sick movie like "Mr. Holland's Opus", which can only
resort to low blows because it has nothing to say, go ahead. But this
film could have been good. It should have been great.

It's a pity, Marchal's got a great CV as an actor (!) as well as a
writer and director. I just don't like his way of "emotional
blackmail", that the Argentine writer J. L. Borges wrote about 50 years
ago. He liked the genre, I suspect he wouldn't like this
tergiversation.

I've just learned this is the last part of a trilogy, starting with
"Gangsers" (2002), then followed by 36 Quai des Orfèvres (nothing to do
with the 1947 movie, that was way more daring for its age). Any of the
3 has actors that would make any budding director dream: grouchy
Gérard, André Dussollier, Anne Parillaud, Francis Renaud and Olivia
Bonamy here. He is very believable (something of Madeleine R. IMDb
readers?) . She could make a rock weep. Here she is given such lame
material that it only hints at what she could do. Like the "motive" for
her to want to track Charles Subra. "Ask him if he had changed". Come'
on...! He killed her family, but did his time (= in jail) as a law
abiding citizen, but now he's free, we secretly want him killed, and so
does she. If not, why ask him with a dishonest kiss to "find him"? If
everybody knows he's a loose cannon? But she's got to remain "purely
good". Then, she's got to babble something ludicrous as her leitmotif?
The problem is that it's the core of this bad movie. Ah, the cliché of
"the woman who could be his daughter that puts some order and romance
into a loner looser with addiction(s) isn't something you've seen a
million times? Again, superb IMDb community of reviewers, help me out
with names commenting this review, in your own, add a thread or
something.

I just don't want to write this review. The only scene I liked was the
predictable dog accident with his sidekick. Schneider seems really
angry, like if nothing he does could ever turn right. Auteuil has to
overact all his other "anger scenes" so as to carry on with this boring
film. Like the "botched And at the morgue" scene, the fight with
Kovalski, his constant drunkenness, etc. At Quai he's also got to
endure jail, unfair condemnation even from his family, bereavement
(sounds familiar :)?). Even the filming style here of the melodramatic
scenes is the same. In fact, that's what made me think I had seen the
same film before... it was Quai :(! Music is good when playing the
obsessive tune Schneider gets on his head. Kovalski gets the best line,
the good if not superb: "cops are like family, we don't betray each
other" (to the fat forensic/ photographer, smuggler). Now that I think
about it, I'm surprised he didn't wind up dead. I also liked Subra's
pretence of redemption, totally feigned convincingly, so much he fools
Kovalski. Which is not so surprising given he fits the profile of the
classic psychopath. Emmanuel Carrière in the book that originated the
infinitely better "L'Adversaire" (also starring Auteuil) narrates how
the true case of a guy who murdered basically all his family, including
parents and in laws, even almost got rid of her lover too, all during a
long period (not in a fit or rage or something), later in jail
converted to extreme religious zeal. Sounds familiar, right?

Catherine Marchal does a fine emphatic psychologist. Yes, she's smart
and beautiful (her sleek attire and ultra stylish car does help), but
doesn't she have the same surname as the director? Oh my.

I liked the lighting. All the whites are too white, blinding.
"Saturating" or whatever is the jargon for that. I suppose it follows
some esthetical motivation, all I can say is it added some mysticism
sorely wanting in the film. What I mean is, photography is probably the
best this movie has. Even Subra in jail, washing or being put back into
prison make you feel trapped, like if you were really there, grey
walls, into constant "greyness".

Watch this film, don't get me wrong. The ending is worth it. But don't
harbour great expectations, and you won't be disappointed. Like most
things in life, I guess :).

Let me get the faint praise out the way immediately - 'The Last Deadly Mission' (MR 73) isn't a bad film. Those who routinely enjoy Hollywood style action blockbusters will find little fault with this movie, except, perhaps, that all the characters speak French (with subtitles), and that the director indulges in a darker worldview than American audiences may be used to. Otherwise, this is a slick, professional production, with nice acting turns by Olivia Bonamy (who is always a pleasure to watch); and from Phillipe Nahon, whom horror film enthusiasts might remember as the maniac from 'High Tension', and whose crinkly, weathered face can seem nonchalant and murderous all at the same time.

'Last Mission' is really two stories meshed into one; that of Schneider, a Marseille cop nearly consumed by alcohol and anguish, who is on the trail of a serial rapist and killer; and that of Justine, who, twenty years earlier, along with her younger sister, escaped death at the hands of a psychopath when he invaded her home and killed her parents. The psychopath, Charles Subra, is evidently reformed and up for parole, and the two separate stories merge when Justine realizes that Schneider is the detective who arrested Subra those many years ago. Alone, pregnant, and frightened, she turns to Schneider for comfort against her fears, unmindful (or too consumed with anxiety to care) that he is only a shell of the cop he once was.

The movie doesn't suffer from these competing story lines - former police officer Oliver Marchal is competent as director, and he maintains a pace that is energetic yet lucid. Where I think the film ultimately loses relevance is that evidently no police thriller cliché was considered off-limits. Schneider (Daniel Auteuil) plays his embittered, alcoholic detective with such hip, slick, and cool sneering contempt for the rest of the world that he is more caricature than cop. The corruption in the department reaches to the highest levels, though its most persistent face, a detective named Kovalski, is an utter slime-ball who blocks Schneider at every turn until the time for righteous retribution comes around. The psychotic Subra, is, unfortunately, all too possible in the world, yet I can't help feeling as though his actions were inserted solely for the emotional response it would elicit from the audience - which is typical, and, to this viewer, a shortcut to real storytelling. I think it is also irresponsible of filmmakers who portray violence this way, as a constant stream of brutal footage forces movies to find ever more grotesque methods to affect an ever more jaded audience.

I don't mean to saddle 'The Last Deadly Mission' with the shortcomings of contemporary film-making - I only hoped to illustrate how it conforms to the shopworn conventions of its genre. There are other examples, far to many to list, but what makes them all the more glaring is that the film goes out of its way to tell the audience that it is 'Inspired By A True Story'. About mid-way through, I began to doubt that a movie which marched in lockstep with other films of its kind could possible be based on real events. Curious, I did some cursory research online, and according to what I found, there was little from life that made its way onto the screen. Claiming real life as the inspiration for this film is like claiming the story of the Zodiac Killer was the inspiration for 'Dirty Harry'. It was, but in the case of 'Last Mission', it feels like a marketing ploy.

If this film has a saving grace, it is in the last 15 minutes. The actual texture of the film changes, and I could almost believe a different unit entirely filmed it. Whereas the bulk of this movie feels indistinguishable from generic thrillers, the last chapter takes on its own (admittedly bleak and dark) personality, and actually does so in a straightforward manner that strips away much of the 'sleek and stylish' nonsense carried on in the majority of the film. That doesn't make the ending original, but the subtle difference between cliché and unoriginal is that cliché is an invented shortcut to real story - truth, even fictional truth, is often unoriginal, only the telling is left to be surprising. Had the filmmakers stuck to the latter, as they did at the end, they might have produced an interesting study of personalities - instead of a film that is only marginally better than the average.

This film is unrated, though with intense and brutal crime scenes, gun violence, mature language, adult situations, and graphic scenes of childbirth, it may be best to send the kids off to bed before watching at home.

Here's a great rental, so long as you like maudlin French movies. Daniel Auteuil is probably the most versatile French actor in the business, and has comfortably played billionaires, dapper detectives, and in farcical romps. In 'The Last Deadly Mission' he is a drunken detective staggering blearily through horrific crime scenes with the aid of his alcoholic crutch. The plot revolves around the usual batch of serial killer gore, corpses rudely posed, liberal spatterings of the claret, but the characters have far more elan than the standard Hollywoodland murder-fest. Maybe it's the cigarettes, those smoldering European glances veiled in wreathes of smoke sure fill the silences and seem to go rather well with entire bottles of liquor quaffed like ice tea. Well, the drunken de-badged detective succeeds, gets the bad guy, but the movie is far from over. The whole film is based on writer-director Olivier Marchal's experiences as a cop, and it is not until the end where we find out what Auteuil's character is running from, a wife in a coma on a respirator after an automobile accident, none of which we piece together until the closing frames. Interservice cop rivalries are played out with fists, love triangles form and dissolve, and the Chrysler product placement throughout is softened by Auteuil's crusty Volvo. A moody, gritty, French cop drama with a tough, uncompromising ending that also incorporates a beautiful birthing scene and the continuity of a new life.