The acting in this movie is really good.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Jacques Audiard, a man that had written for the cinema with some degree of success, decided to try his hand at directing with this production. For this event he decided to adapt a Teri White novel, "Triangle", rather than create the scenario himself, which is a strange choice for a man that contributed original material up to this point. The results are mixed. The film shows elements of crime, suspense and in a way, it is a road movie.We are given two narratives that interweave each other that in many aspects is more style than substance. The device serves to confuse the viewer. Nothing is clear until the end. How is Simon connected with Marx and Johnny, one wonders. Of course, it is revealed on the last minutes of the film. There are aspects of homosexuality in the relationship between Marx and Johnny, and it makes one wonder why Simon is so interested in finding out from a male hustler what goes on in his life.Jean Yanne's Simon is the most interesting character in the film. He is a welcome presence in whatever vehicle he decided to appear. On the other hand, Jean-Louis Trintignant does not fare as well with his pushy Marx. Mathieu Kassovitz is an annoying presence in the way he was asked to play Johnny. Bulle Ogier is only seen briefly.Gerald Sterin's dark photography is perfect for the dark atmosphere the director was trying to achieve. Alexandre Desplat's musical score works well within the context of the film.

This film is full of interesting ideas. Some scenes are truly hilarious. The dialogs are witty and colloquial. The tension in the film comes not so much from the 'murder mystery' plot as from the relationship between the characters. The film tells two stories in parallel.The first story involves the characters played by Trintignant and Kassovitz. Trintignant is an ageing drifter, with a somewhat ridiculous macho toughness, who is followed by a naive young man played by Kassovitz with plenty of good-natured smiles. Many good moments in the film come from the contrast between the two characters, for example when Trintignant tries to teach Kassovitz how to be intimidating.The second story tells how a salesman,played by Jean Yanne, gives up his job and his wife to find the murderer of a young friend. Yanne plays the part with a kind of aggressive irony. I wish I could describe this better.After a while the viewer understands how both stories are connected and they meet indeed in the end, in a surprising but also logical ending.The film is a successful mixture of the witty but superficial gangster films the director's father (the celebrated Michel Audiard) used to write, and the "typical french film" with lots of psychological depth and lots of care in the display of emotions.

This was the first film by Jacques Audiard whose father Michel wrote more than 120 screenplays, mostly pedestrian though he did work, for instance on Les Tontons Flinguers. Jacques himself eased his way into directing via writing and won a minor writing credit on Toni Marshall's Venus Beaute though it's difficult to imagine exactly what he contributed given that the world of his four feature films - he followed this with Un heros tres discret, Sure mes levres and this years De battre mon couer s'est arrete - is light years away from that of Marshall. On balance it's not a world I care much about though usually there's at least something to admire - Manu Devos for example - in each one with the possible exception of the last. In this debut he got to work with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jean Yanne and an elliptical plot that emerges like Kafka being proof-read by Faulkner. It takes a while but eventually we realize that Marx (Trintignant) is addicted to gambling but not, alas, to winning. To get out of the hole he reluctantly agrees to 'hit' someone but finds he can't do it so a younger man, Johnny (Matthieu Kassovitz) with learning difficulties, who has attached himself to Marx, volunteers to deputise, thus do people bond. Somewhere along the line Johnny wastes an undercover cop Mickey (Yvon Back) which disturbs Michey's friend Simon Hirsch (Jean Yanne) so much that he sets out on an individual crusade to track down the killers. Would that it were as simple as I've described it here but it seems that Audiard doesn't do straightforward we're fed information via an eye-dropper whilst incidentally exploring the world of homo-eroticism. Bulle Ogier, a major selling-point for me has a blink-and-you'll miss it cameo and that's about it. I'm glad I saw it but wouldn't necessarily go back for seconds.

This noir character study uses the plot only as a vehicle to explore its protagonists' world. Although it's an honest attempt and the actors do very well (Trintignant is a personal favorite anyway), the pace is too slow and tiring and the lack of action sometimes becomes evident. Sometimes words cannot generate interest by themselves.