WE'LL END UP TOGETHER : Tuesday 18th August 2020.

'WE'LL END UP TOGETHER' ('NOUS FINIRONS ENSEMBLE' to give this its original French title) is an M Rated film which I saw at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week. This film is the long awaited follow up to 2010's acclaimed 'Little White Lies' that is once again Written and Directed by the French filmmaker, Actor, Writer and Producer Guillaume Canet. With seventy acting credits to his name, eleven as Writer, twelve as Director and seven as Producer, Canet is currently in pre-production with his latest offering 'Asterix & Obelix : L'Empire du Millieu' in which he stars, writes and Directs. This film opened in France on 1st May 2019 where it went on to become the second highest grossing film in that country of that year, and was only released in Australia on 6th August and has garnered generally positive press so far.

The years have passed by since middle-aged restaurateur Max (Francois Cluzet) has welcomed his friends at his idyllic summer house in the chic beach community of Cap Ferret. The group have generally reconnected there for his birthday, but since things didn’t exactly go to plan last time around, they haven’t seen much of one another in the intervening years. Max is busy tidying up his beach side home away from home as the film opens up. He is alone, he sleeps a restless sleep waking up with a start, and continues cleaning inside and out. Then he hears a noise coming from outdoors and goes to investigate. To his surprise, all crouched under a window, are his long time albeit somewhat absent friends who have rocked up unannounced to help Max celebrate his 60th birthday. But, their collective presence is not altogether a welcome one.

Those close friends are Marie (Marion Cotillard), Eric (Gilles Lellouche) with his hapless buddy turned assistant Antoine (Laurent Lafitte), together with Eric's young daughter Mila and her domineering and over bearing nanny Catherine (Tatiana Gousseff), Vincent (Benoit Magimel), Alex (Mikael Wattincourt), Isabelle (Pascale Arbillot) and Sabine (Clementine Baert), Max's new love interest. In the intervening years - Marie still mourns the loss of the love of her life Ludo and drinks and smokes heavily, tells crass jokes and says that her seven year old son Nino represents 'everything she hates in the world', Eric has become a famous Actor but is strapped with his child because the mother is wasted on MDMA in Ibiza and is worse than useless, Antoine is a child trapped in a man's body who is at the beck and call of Eric, physiotherapist Vincent and his wife of fourteen years Isabelle have split and he is now gay and with choreographer Alex, Isabelle has since come out of her shell and is now a much more confident care free fun loving woman, and Sabine as Ludo's mother cares deeply for Max. After trying to dismiss all of his friends saying that it's not convenient, they weren't invited, they're taking advantage, and that he has nothing to celebrate anyway he finally relents and says that they can stay for two nights. Meanwhile, a Real Estate Agent calls around to inspect the property, because Max is wanting to sell, but Max wants this done on the hush hush and doesn't want his friends to know, or his ex-wife Vero (Valerie Bonneton) finding out.

And so having renewed acquaintances and said their hello's with lukewarm embraces, they begin to eat, drink, catch-up on old times and make merry. Max however, is teetering on a knife edge, barely able to adjust to his new found company for the weekend. In an aside conversation that Max has with Eric (having both buried the hatchet after all these years following Eric's accusations at their last meeting which resulted in Max turning his back on them all), we learn that Max is bankrupt having had to sell his hotel, his restaurant and his yacht to finance some investment that went south with all of his money and hard earned savings. His is now practically penniless hence the reason for his depressive state and for needing to sell the beach house. To take the pressure of the weekend off Max, Eric rents a nearby property right on the waters edge that has enough accommodation to house them all, plus a heated swimming pool and all the comforts of home and is within easy reach of Max's place. And so the next day, the group all decamp there, under the guise that Max has rented the place so they can be more comfortable.

That afternoon, when the group are all lounging about, Max goes back to his place to collect some wine for dinner. There he notices a 'For Sale' sign up on his front gate which he gave strict instructions not to be posted for another week. In passing Alain (Jose Garcia) pulls up with two other mates who are visiting the area for the weekend by chance. Alain is a business rival of Max's and he notices the 'For Sale' which Max abruptly pulls down. Max has no time for Alain, and after a curt conversation Max departs. Later on Veronique arrives with a friend and they are interrupted by Alain and his two buddies traipsing through the property on their own private inspection, with a view to Alain possibly buying it. Veronique enquires what they're up to and Alain lets slip that the house is for sale. Veronique is livid of course and she calls Max to vent. Max is livid that Veronique now knows. Alain suggests to Veronique that they should have a drink, and the five of them drink plenty of Max's stash of aged wines and the pair end up spending the night together.

Max's group after a hearty dinner, go out clubbing until closing time, and by the time the next morning has rolled around Vincent has slept with his ex-wife Isabelle, Eric and Marie have spent the night together and Veronique and Alain have got it on. The next morning Max, Antoine and Marie go tandem sky diving, and all three of them have the time of their life doing it, except Max wet his pants on the way down, for which he is seriously derided by the others over lunch. Max demands to pick up the tab for lunch but when he goes to pay his credit card is declined. Fortunately the restaurant manger is understanding and says to pay later, when he has the money. Some of the group then depart and go and pay Veronique a visit. Suspecting something is not quite right Max walks along the beach and peers through the fence of his property to see his friends enjoying Veronique's company and her new found friends. This sends Max into a spiral of depression, and arriving back at Eric's rented house, he throws himself off the jetty with a noose around his neck. But his attempted suicide is thwarted by a rope that is too long, a jump that is too short, and the water that is too shallow. Back on dry land, Max explains to the group his current state of affairs and his state of mind, and the group all rally round reaffirming their deep rooted friendship and love for their friend in his time of personal crisis.

Later that afternoon Vincent and Alex have fallen out because Alex suspects that Vincent got it on with his ex-wife the night before, and three teenage boys and Marie's young lad Nino go out on a catamaran without advising their respective parents. A search party is hastily arranged resulting in the boys capsized catamaran being discovered in choppy seas with the three teenagers clinging to the upturned vessel but no signs of Nino who got swept out in the current. Marie is distraught, spots him and jumps into the swell with Eric in tow, eventually rescuing the seven year old boy. That night, over dinner and a game of 'Charade's' everyone is in a much lighter mood, guards are let down, and there is an air of relaxed contentment amongst the group of friends.

The next day after a walk along the beach, the group all depart for the respective homes, each going their separate ways. Max and Sabine head for their house to meet with the Real Estate Agent and the new owners who made an on the spot offer. The new prospective buyers are down from Paris, fell in love with the place and have already hatched plans to put in an outdoor swimming pool, pull down fences, and make all manner of alterations. Their two young boys swing on the branch of a tree snapping it, and fall to the ground, unharmed. Sat around the dining table, the Real Estate Agent begins to read out the terms of the contract of sale. Max's mind begins to wander and he has a vision of his friends all rocking up, with bottles of wine in tow, begging him to come outside. Sabine sits at the end of table looking pensive. Max looks up, stops the Real Estate Agent in his tracks, and says that he's not selling, and hastily escorts the would be buyers and the Agent off his property. Sabine smiles, relieved. As they drive away from the property, Max calls his friends asking 'where are you?'

This film is an easy watch, and anyone who has been away for a weekend either to the coast, or the mountains or the wineries with friends and stayed in a big old rambling house together will be able to relate to the relationships, the dynamics, the emotions, the eating and drinking, the games and the exploits shared amongst a particular group. In that respect 'We'll End Up Together' is not unlike Rachel Ward's 2019 Australian offering 'Palm Beach' - beautiful beach side locale, check; rich mostly successful middle class long time friends, check; a dose of drama, discontent and redemption, check; plenty of wine, food and cigarettes, check again; and moments of laugh out loud humour, raw emotion and quirks that are quintessentially French, check once more! The cast all give top notch performances that are grounded in reality and believable and in particular Francois Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Gilles Lellouche and Benoit Magimel are all standouts, and all the characters look as though they are having a genuinely good time during production. On the down side this is an all Anglo-Saxon white cast with not a single person of colour to be seen, and the only minority group shown here is represented by Vincent who has jumped the fence, but has no problem it seems jumping back to whence he came. There is no political unrest, threats of terrorism going on in the background which have thwarted France in recent years, in fact everything is all sunshine and rainbows in Cap Ferret, save for the situations and circumstances of the groups own making during their weekend away at the coast. But I guess the message amongst all the angst, bickering, emotion and inevitable make-ups is that true friends stick by your side no matter what, and in this regard, the films message is unmistakable.

'We'll End Up Together' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

LOST BULLET : Thursday 25th June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Lost Bullet' which went live on the streaming service on 19th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Thursday 25th June.

'LOST BULLET' is an original French Netflix production Directed and Co-Written by Guillaume Pierret in his feature film making debut following a number of outings Directing French TV shows and his breakout nine minute short film 'Matriarche' in 2012. This film is spoken in French with English subtitles, runs for a brisk 93 minutes and has garnered generally favourable Reviews so far.

Opening up with Lino (Alban Lenoir) clearly a whizz at all things auto mechanical, as he is seen welding steel bars into the engine bay of a Renault Clio and then firing up the supercharged engine which sits mounted where the rear passengers would normally be seated. He drives the car round the block late at night stopping briefly to pick up his good friend Quentin (Rod Paradot) before passing a jewellery store that he has every intention of ram raiding. The pair buckle up their reinforced seat belts, put on crash helmets, and line up the vehicle. As Lino accelerates towards the shop front, he flicks a switch which gives him an extra 300 horsepower and the Clio charges full tilt through the jewellery shop window, and out through the concrete wall at the back, and then through another concrete wall, then another, and then another before coming to rest outside in the street, with Clio sized holes visible though all four buildings in the block. As Police sirens ring out, Lino's seat belt is jammed and he is unable to get free to make a run for it, but orders Quentin to leg it, which he does. Needless to say, Lino is arrested and thrown in prison.

Next up we cut to a chase down a highway involving a souped up reinforced Police pursuit vehicle and an equally souped up BMW driven by some drug runners. Weaving in and out of trucks and other vehicles, the Police pursuit vehicle is in radio contact with another similar Police car coming in the opposite direction. The second Police car rams headlong into the oncoming BMW totally wiping out both vehicles. The occupants of the BMW are dead at the scene, but the two cops get out unscathed thanks to their heavily reinforced pursuit vehicle. Job done, stash of drugs recovered and no-one is too perturbed about the pair of very dead low life crims.

We then fast track a few months, and Lino is visited in prison by the chief of a special drug unit Charas (Ramzy Bedia) who recognising his potential offers him a deal to work as a Police mechanic in his specialised 'go fast' unit, on a prison day release scheme. After about nine months on the job, in which time Lino has integrated himself well into the four man unit by pimping up the Police pursuit cars so they can outrun the 'go fast' criminals vehicles along the French motorways, Charas offers him an early release deal.

However, Lino's plans for an early release go somewhat awry when Charas is shot and killed by a member of his own unit, Areski (Nicolas Duvauchelle), witnessed by his colleague Marco (Sebastien Lalanne) who are both running their own nefarious criminal business on the side with underworld characters Jacques (Patrick Medioni) and Kad (Arthur Aspturian), using Quentin to help them pimp their own vehicles. Areski shoots Charas through the back window of his car, with the bullet piercing the drivers seat, Charas back, exiting though his chest and coming to rest embedded in the instrument panel of the dash board. Meanwhile, Lino has made  a run for it. Areski orders Jacques and Kad to torch the car, and with it Charas' body.

Needless to say Lino is framed for the murder of Charas. Arriving at a petrol station with gun in hand to call Julia (Stefi Celma) - the fourth member of the unit, he is promptly arrested and taken in for questioning. Areski enters the interview room where Lino is handcuffed to the table, and offers him a story with which to get him off the hook in exchange for his silence. Lino declines the offer, and after some handiwork involving an aluminium chair he is able to prize himself free. What follows is an intense hand to hand close quarter combat sequence that sees Lino fend off a dozen or so hefty Police Officers as he seeks to escape from custody and to prove his innocence. He dispenses with the dozen or so cops using chairs, tables, laptop computers, punches, kicks and a can of capsicum spray before exiting the cop shop badly battered and bruised, but having come out on top nonetheless, despite the overwhelming odds.

He catches up with Julia at the garage where the Go Fast unit is also based and tries to explain his innocence in the whole sorry affair. Julia has taken Charas' death particularly hard as they rode together and she was seen as his natural successor. It also seems that Lino and Julia had a thing for each other in the recent past. While they are talking the burnt out remains of Charas' vehicle is brought into the garage on a tow truck. Lino and Julia get into a fight, which ultimately sees Julia handcuffed to the bumper of a car as Lino limps away gasping for air. Before leaving however, he looks under the burnt out remains of the vehicle and says 'that's not Charas' car!'

So Lino goes back to the scrapyard of Jacques and Kad in search of Charas's car, but is sprung by the pair and held at gunpoint. With some quick thinking by Quentin, he and Lino are able to disable the pair and lock them inside the boot of a car, only to be uncovered later by Areski and Marco, who out of frustration for their failings in apprehending Lino, kill the pair and pin their murder on Lino and Quentin.

Meanwhile, Lino recontacts Julia hoping to get a more welcoming reception this time around, and a little understanding. This time she listens but still remains unconvinced that Areski and Marco are at the centre of the misdeeds. However, she goes along with his story for the time being. He tells her to meet him at the place they first met, and in driving there Quentin tells Lino that he knows where Charas' car is hidden away. They rendezvous and Quentin explains to Julia all the events that went down that had led them to this point. Julia is now more convinced, and in leaving they realise they had been followed by a couple of suspicious looking characters. Managing to evade them, Julia returns to her garage HQ and Lino and Quentin make for an abandoned farmstead out in the country where Charas' car is stashed. This is Lino's only hope of proving his innocence, by reclaiming the bullet in the instrument panel of the dashboard - the lost bullet - and ensuring it is handed over to the real authorities before Areski and Marco get to him first.

At the abandoned farmhouse, Quentin and Lino sneak around, not realising that Marco has stealthily rocked up having also been given the location of Charas' vehicle by Kad whom he beat to death with the butt end of his rifle earlier. In an unguarded moment Marco shoots Quentin in the chest. Hearing the shot ring out, Lino takes cover in the kitchen but is drawn out by Marco. A fist fight ensues, in which Lino eventually overpowers Marco and handcuffs him securely to a fixture inside the farm house, but not before firing off a around into his bullet proof vest which has incapacitated him. Quentin meanwhile has struggled to drag himself over to the wheel of a tractor, propped himself up against it, and died with a winch in his hand. Seeing this, Lino realises that the winch leads to a mound of mulch under which is concealed Charas' vehicle. With the keys still in the ignition, he fires up the engine - it starts first time. He drives the car into the barn, where lo and behold, there is a full welding kit with which Lino is able to reinforce the front end with a rather nifty pair of very large and very menacing looking hooks. He also tinkers about with the engine to extract just a little more grunt out of it's turbo engine.

The next morning Areski has set up a road block on the look out for Charas' old car, with a couple of Police pursuit vehicles on patrol in the vicinity. The Police car spots Lino and gives chase. As the Police vehicle overtakes Lino's, he manoeuvres his vehicle into position, accelerates and hooks on to the back end of the Police car. With the rear axle disabled, Lino is pushing the Police car along at full speed headed directly for the road block, which he ploughs through easily, with the full protection of the Police car in front. He rams through several other vehicles sending them flying.

Areski now has no concern other to dispense with Lino and Charas' car as quickly as possible. Giving chase, the pair of cars weave down narrow French streets, other vehicles in the way get trashed, and eventually Julia joins the chase in another vehicle having realised that Lino must be telling the truth about Charas' car. Areski tries to ram Lino off the road, while Julia broadsides Lino on the other side effectively sandwiching him in the middle. With nowhere to go, Areski's car is sent tumbling end over end and lands on its side, a crumpled mess. Julia's car hits a lamppost, and Lino's comes to rest a short distance away.

Areski crawls out of the car as Lino sets upon him beating him senseless and bloody as Areski releases a grenade into Charas' car. It explodes and the back end is engulfed in flames. Lino jumps in and drives at a furious pace towards the garage as flames begin to engulf more of the vehicle. He tears into the garage and drives the car headlong into the back wall as he is thrown through the windscreen when the vehicle comes to an abrupt halt. At the garage another mechanic and Moss (Pascale Arbillot) the superior officer handling the unit since Charas' demise douse the flames with fire extinguishers.

Later we see forensics extracting the bullet from the dashboard of Charas' car and examining it, and its trajectory. We then see Moss hading over a document to Julia to give to Lino absolving him of any guilt, he is now a free man. Julia walks Lino out of the garage with her arm around him. They turn around to take a last glance at Charas' burned out car, adorned with wreaths and floral tributes. Areski meanwhile sneaks into his house where his wife is playing with their young child in the garden. He goes to the bedroom, removes a secret panel from his closet and unloads a weapon and a stash of bank notes which he bundles into a holdall. He then leaves the house without saying goodbye, and presumably drives off into the sunset.

Don't be mislead by the title of this film into thinking this is just another by the numbers derivative cops and robbers offering, because there is more to this French action thriller than the title and the pitch would have you believe. Here former stuntman Alban Lenoir puts in a convincing turn as a cross between a Gallic Jason Statham and Vin Diesel replete with #1 haircut and five days of stubble and able to drive his way out of any car chase and punch, kick, maim and disable his way out of any fist fight with all manner of adversaries. The film proves that you can do a lot with relatively little, as the practical stunts, fight sequences, and the modest production values far outweigh the allegedly low cost of production. Whilst Lenoir is front and centre in this film as the antagonist turned protagonist, the remainder of the principle cast all put in worthwhile turns too dropping plenty of 'f' bombs and often drenched in blood, sweat and tears. Sure the plot is cliched enough, and stretches the imagination, but the action which is frenetic and frequent will keep you entertained, and for Lino it seems, the door is left wide open for a sequel or two, which the Producers have already hinted at. Well worth a look for lovers of fast and furious car-nage, fist fights, and one man on a mission to clear his name come hell or high water genre offerings.

'Lost Bullet' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-