A host of great films bears witness to the great respect the French have for British or should I say Anglo-Saxon crime writing. So why am I not particularly pleased this time around?
The two main characters are matched quite nicely and not just by typecasting. There is the necessary chemistry and not an unpleasant one at all.
I like the fifties' setting but here the director overplayed his hand. Either he thought he could create an interesting artificial setting, or he just didn't work hard enough to create a living breathing setting for the crimes to take place. It's all so clean, constructed, empty, fake. Whenever the story moves to the streets, there's a loss of atmosphere. The same super clean cars, close-up shots to keep us from seeing to much 21st century details. And I've seen my first anachronism already in the second episode.
But the coup de grâce comes from the direction itself. Many dialogues and situation are stale, unfinished, uninteresting. Apart from the main characters many actors are under-performing, the script is just too mediocre and the direction too tedious.
I still like the effort, but clearly this could have been ten times better.
The two main characters are matched quite nicely and not just by typecasting. There is the necessary chemistry and not an unpleasant one at all.
I like the fifties' setting but here the director overplayed his hand. Either he thought he could create an interesting artificial setting, or he just didn't work hard enough to create a living breathing setting for the crimes to take place. It's all so clean, constructed, empty, fake. Whenever the story moves to the streets, there's a loss of atmosphere. The same super clean cars, close-up shots to keep us from seeing to much 21st century details. And I've seen my first anachronism already in the second episode.
But the coup de grâce comes from the direction itself. Many dialogues and situation are stale, unfinished, uninteresting. Apart from the main characters many actors are under-performing, the script is just too mediocre and the direction too tedious.
I still like the effort, but clearly this could have been ten times better.