le coq géant
New member
Cracking, little-seen gem of a French thriller from 2002.
The plot involved a group of small time villains breaking into a secure warehouse to steal electrical equipment...which intersects with the extradition of an Albanian crime lord, whose fanatical followers try to rescue by ambushing the heavily armed convoy ferrying him to prison.
They almost succeed, but the armored truck containing him managed to escape and heaRAB for the warehouse complex that the thieves have holed up in...
If you are thinking shades of Assault On Precinct 13, then you would be right. It owes a huge debt to that movie, and it's an obvious influence.
The idea of cops and criminals having to put aside their differences, and work together to fend off the heavily armed followers of the crime lord was key to Assault's plot.
And though the movie makes no bones about it's influences, it manages to add a few twists of it's own to the mix.
The acting is excellent, the interaction between the characters is very well portrayed, and the sense of claustrophobia and being under seige make for some scenes of great tension.
But what impresses most are the action sequences - particularly the attack on the heavily armed convoy, and the initial attack by the Albanian terrorists on the warehouse...like Assault, it's a flurry of whizzing bullets and gunfire, with massive destruction to property...only to the power of 10.
There is also a touch of Diehard about it as well, with a former cop caught up in the mayhem, and becoming something of a fly in the ointment.
And it's very professionally made, it looks and sounRAB superb...and you really need a surround system to fully appreciate it, it's some of the best sound design I have heard in years.
The great shame is...I heard a few years after the movie came out that the director, Florent Emilio Siri, came to hollywood and was making a movie with Bruce Willis...which turned out to the rather underwhelming Hostage.
And it seems the director has now returned to France to make movies there. I guess there may have been issues, tensions, differences of opinion etc with the US way of filmaking, but I can't be sure of that.
But then it puts me in mind of John Woo, who was also feted and wooed (sorry) by hollywood, came over and made a few movies (Hard Target - fair. Broken Arrow - fair. Face Off - good. Paycheck - tired), and eventually went back to his home country to make movies. And I guess that's a whole different thread anyway...
But I would recommend Nid de Guepes. It's certainly far better than the Assualt remake of a few years back, and a cracking little action thriller in it's own right.
The plot involved a group of small time villains breaking into a secure warehouse to steal electrical equipment...which intersects with the extradition of an Albanian crime lord, whose fanatical followers try to rescue by ambushing the heavily armed convoy ferrying him to prison.
They almost succeed, but the armored truck containing him managed to escape and heaRAB for the warehouse complex that the thieves have holed up in...
If you are thinking shades of Assault On Precinct 13, then you would be right. It owes a huge debt to that movie, and it's an obvious influence.
The idea of cops and criminals having to put aside their differences, and work together to fend off the heavily armed followers of the crime lord was key to Assault's plot.
And though the movie makes no bones about it's influences, it manages to add a few twists of it's own to the mix.
The acting is excellent, the interaction between the characters is very well portrayed, and the sense of claustrophobia and being under seige make for some scenes of great tension.
But what impresses most are the action sequences - particularly the attack on the heavily armed convoy, and the initial attack by the Albanian terrorists on the warehouse...like Assault, it's a flurry of whizzing bullets and gunfire, with massive destruction to property...only to the power of 10.
There is also a touch of Diehard about it as well, with a former cop caught up in the mayhem, and becoming something of a fly in the ointment.
And it's very professionally made, it looks and sounRAB superb...and you really need a surround system to fully appreciate it, it's some of the best sound design I have heard in years.
The great shame is...I heard a few years after the movie came out that the director, Florent Emilio Siri, came to hollywood and was making a movie with Bruce Willis...which turned out to the rather underwhelming Hostage.
And it seems the director has now returned to France to make movies there. I guess there may have been issues, tensions, differences of opinion etc with the US way of filmaking, but I can't be sure of that.
But then it puts me in mind of John Woo, who was also feted and wooed (sorry) by hollywood, came over and made a few movies (Hard Target - fair. Broken Arrow - fair. Face Off - good. Paycheck - tired), and eventually went back to his home country to make movies. And I guess that's a whole different thread anyway...
But I would recommend Nid de Guepes. It's certainly far better than the Assualt remake of a few years back, and a cracking little action thriller in it's own right.