Exploring The French Country Side

I'm back yet again. I'm hoping that this string of reviews, that will keep going into tomorrow and possibly Monday, will make up for the fact that I haven't been doing as many reviews over the last couple of months. The movie I just finished watching was one that the trailer was shown for at the After Dark Horror Fest. From what I have been reading, it was intended to be part of the line up, but got pulled because it was given a NC-17 rating. That would have greatly limited who would actually show the film. I'm hoping that the folks behind the Horror Fest won't give up on foreign films. I, for one, would love to see some foreign horror films mixed in with the rest.

Frontier(s) (2007) starts is Paris. Riots are breaking out all over the city because of the election that is accruing there. In the midst of this, five people have the police hot on their trail because they have just robbed a bank and are getting away with the money. Somehow they have split into two groups. Tom (David Saracino) seems to be the leader of both groups. He has with him Alex (Aurelien Wiik) and Farid (Chems Dahmani). The other group is Yasmine (Karina Testa) and her brother, Sami (Adel Bencherif). Sami has been shot and is in need of a doctor. Once Tom and the rest lose the police, they meet up and decide that Alex will take Sami to the hospital along with Yasmine. Tom and Farid will head out of the city and find a place to stay, so they can all meet up later and decide what to do from there. Sami appears to die at the hospital as the police want to question Yasmine. So she takes off and gets away with Alex. As they head out of the city, Tom and Farid have found a place to spend the night. Unfortunately for all of them, the people that run the hostel have other planes for them.

If you like your movies extra gory, Frontier(s) is a perfect fit for you. There are plenty of gory effects to be found and all are done in the best of ways. There was only one effect that was just a little off to me. Not so far off as to ruin it, still just a little off though. There are fingers and heads being shot off. A saw blade comes into play. Tendons being cut and plenty more. Lets just say that the blood flows very freely. The acting appeared to be pretty good as well. Karina Testa was great. I really enjoyed her and her character. You can also find Patrick Ligardes, Maud Forget, Samuel Le Bihan, Amelie Daure, Estelle Lefebure and Joel Lefrancois.



Frontier(s) brings nothing new as far as the plot of the movie goes. Many people that have watched it, and know French history, have said that director/writer Xavier Gens was making a statement about the recent election in France. I think this is lost on many people, since we don't know what has been going on in France for the most part. The plot does elude to this some, but some reviews have said that this plot point is "pointless" or "useless." It is hinted at some at the start of the film and again at the end of the film. Just because it wasn't hitting us over the head the whole movie, doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. Another complaint was that because they are all bank robbers, they are therefore unlikeable. The only person we get to know well out of the group is Yasmine. I really think she is the only character that we are supposed to care about. Almost right from the start, she is portrayed in a different light from the others.

The plot for Frontier(s) didn't bother me. Sure we have seen it before, but the acting and the effects helped make this a very good movie. The plot throws in an old mine that the children inhabit. This was an under used plot point. I really wished this had come into play a lot more than it ended up being used. I was a bit disappointed by that. Being a French film, it is subtitled. I didn't have to turn them on myself this time, they were already on for me. For once, I have something to complain about as far as the subtitles go. At times the subtitles went by too fast for no reason. There will be a long subtitle pop up and before I could read it all it would be gone but the character would still be talking. There would be a few seconds before the next subtitle would pop up so I would be like, why couldn't you let the long subtitle stay up longer? At other times, two subtitles for different characters would come up. That is fine but sometimes there would be a few seconds pause, for dramatic effect, between what the characters would say. The subtitles would ruin that because it was already up on the screen before the actual words came out. I think that sometimes the translation was a little too literal as well. For example, instead of saying something like, "Hurry up!" It was always said as, "Come on!" I mean that is fine, but sometimes when "come on" was being said, the person saying it wasn't meaning to be followed, but rather for the other person to hurry up and go away.

I really wish that Frontier(s) had made it into the After Dark Horror Fest. It would have been a nice addition to the line up that they had. Even though I got tired of seeing the trailer for it, I'm glad that I tracked it down once it came out on DVD. Sadly, they dropped the ball as far as extras. Not one extra can be found. There are some trailers though. I highly recommend this to just about everyone.
4 out of 5 Being steamed to death is a new one on me