Ne le dis a personne (2006)

Ne le dis a personne. Film review. This is a thriller film, a somewhat Hitchcockian thriller in its simplest form (that is, where the leading dude doesn't know about the truth or the nature of the story being told) which relies on loop holes and fill-in-the-blank facts to keep its audiences hooked and interested. That and more importantly, not cheating by giving a logical solution that suddenly came out of the thin air.

Alex and Margot was a happy couple, they're comfortable with each other, and deeply in love. Their marriage was merely another chapter of their life which has been entwined since their childhood time. But on one evening, a tragedy befell on Margot, she was found brutally murdered, and Alex was left in a coma for three days. Fast forward to eight years later, Alex received an anonymous email that led him to a live feed via web-cam that shown clearly, a face of a woman in the middle of a crowd. A face he knew all too well. A face that belongs to Margot.

For the next hundred minutes or so, the story involves quite numerous numbers of characters, all i could tell you that each character had their own importance. Probably due to the complexity of the story, or the short timeframe in which the story unravels, i see no red herring thrown in for good measure. Which is a good thing actually, for it doesn't cheat on its audiences' involvement. The action part, when it comes to that, was also well choreographed. They didn't overdone it, but kept it very very real. The freeway accident got me thinking, "Holly molly! A second late, and that dude would be dead for sure". And the likeable leading dude was also played its part nicely that even if he's merely slipped on a paveway, i heard the audiences moaning as if they felt it themselves too. In short, without giving too many leads away, the film kept its pace and its mysteries in a constant check.

And the film outsmart me. Really. During the final minutes of obligatory explanation (during which i could hear murmurs from the audiences, which shows that they were really hooked up with the film), when it would seems that the mysteries were already unwrapped, i've got a plot-hole question nagging that would otherwise made the film wasn't as good as it would be. However, three or four minutes later, in what feels like an 'extended' ending, the film revisits the explanation scene, and there, it answers the plot-hole question that has been aroused previously. It got me smiling and said to myself, "Good, it doesn't insult my intelligence and it doesn't forget".

My only problem was the too cliche final scene. Had the film leaves where the 'extended' ending was, it would've been better. Or if the cliche final scene was moved to another location, or another time, that would've been a little bit better too. Alas, the previous 115 minutes has been fun, and the final three minutes although it leaves a little bit bitter of taste, doesn't quite enough to marred the experience.

This has been a part of French Film Festival in Indonesia.