When a nurse’s aide, Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) notices a suspicious man departing the bedside of a seriously wounded John Doe (Roschdy Zem), he unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will turn his humble life upside down. Emulating a common Hitchcockian scenario of placing an ordinary man in peril to see how he reacts, Fred Cavaye’s latest urban thriller, Point Blank, comes replete with visual flourishes and an energetic narrative that, although lacking in credibility, provides sleek, uncomplicated entertainment.
There’s a whiff of Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones (1958) about Point Blank (which audaciously usurps the name of John Boorman’s brilliant 1967 revenge masterpiece for its English translation). The John Doe is actually highly sought after criminal Hugo Sartet whose brother wants him free and abducts Samuel’s wife to ensure he the aide complies. Sartet is also being sought by a gang of revengeful crooks responsible for putting him in hospital in the film’s opening scene.
The duo forced into complicity to evade the law, especially some very corrupt members whose investigation is undermining that of their colleagues at every turn. With the public on high alert, it becomes increasingly difficult for the pair to evade alert or prying eyes; a series of chases and shoot outs ensue, including one particularly hyperkinetic foot pursuit.
I’ve been a staunch fan of Zem for quite some time and though he isn’t stretched here by Cavaye’s by the numbers plotting, his presence is still important to the physical, if not emotional, journey these characters undergo. Beyond the corruption and double crossing there’s a comforting simplicity to the duo’s motivations: Sartet wishes to clear his name whilst Samuel will go to radical lengths to ensure the return of his wife and unborn child.
Their fates all collide in a frantic, madhouse finale that winds its way back to an absurdly overpopulated police headquarters. The quantity of people allows Cavaye to enfold his antagonists into the miasmic flow of bodies whilst providing more than adequate cover when they finally track one another down and battle for survival. No prizes for guessing how it plays out, but this diverting film has empathetic characters at least and on both sides of the law.
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