Red Lights DVD (2004)

Red Lights details

Format:	15 DVD
Starring:	Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet
Director:	Cedric Kahn
Genres:	Drama, World Cinema - French
Studio:	FUSION MEDIA

DVD 1 disc

Name	Discs
Red Lights	15 Feature

DVD Information

Run time:	1 hour 40 minutes
Rental release:	24 Jan 2005
Main languages:	French
Subtitles:	English

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Most helpful review Red Lights

Tense and involving thriller

By Philip Concannon from London , 05 Feb 2005

[Highly rated reviewer]

An exceptional performance from Jean-Pierre Darroussin papers over the cracks in this thriller from Cedric Kahn. He plays Antoine, a lowly insurance accountant who is heading out with his wife Helene(Carole Bouquet) to collect their kids from summer camp before taking a vacation. The traffic is dense and tensions, already simmering between the couple, start to boil over along the way. He's clearly resentful of her superior position as a lawyer and spends the journey making snide comments and getting progressively more drunk.

When he stops at yet another bar, Helene threatens to leave if he has another drink. He responds by taking the car keys with him but when he returns, Helene has left a note saying She'll make her own way to their destination. He searches for her for a while but soon gets distracted by a few more bars. He picks up a mysterious stranger and gets himself into some serious trouble, and when he's sobered up he finds out that his wife has gone missing during the night.

'Red Lights' is clearly influenced by Hitchcock, with the score even sounding like Bernard Herrmann. The film also reminds viewers of 'The Vanishing' with Antoine's frantic searching for his wife and the mounting sense of dread. Sadly, it doesn't quite live up to those comparisons. After a bright start, with the couple's frosty relationship perfectly depicted by the two leads, the film takes a different turn as Antoine has problems with his hitch-hiker(Vincent Deniard). Finally it winds up with a disappointingly underwhelming climax.

There's a couple of loose ends left hanging and some very annoying plot-holes, but the film does create a strong atmosphere, offers a number of effective shocks and Darroussin is outstanding in the lead role throughout.
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In French with no possibility of changing the language!

By a customer , 19 Jul 2012

First off let me say that I did not realise this was in French with no possibility of watching it in any other language. Not a major problem but not what I expected - must learn to read all the way down below the synopse. before renting any more.

Once I had got over the boring bit then it did become very annoying. Predictable and given the slowwwww start I have to say in all I did not enjoy it one bit.
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very slow

By a customer from london , 24 Feb 2011

intriguing movie but like french movies generally are very slow, i was left wanting and expecting more, still worth a catch
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Interesting

By a customer from Midlands , 03 Mar 2009

I found the film a little boring in the first 40 minutes. its not until she has gone missing that it picks up. however, it is obvious what has happened and you just wonder why he hasnt worked it out yert. Also the part where he is in the cafe is surprising - well, do you know any cafe owner here who would let you use the phone to make hundreds of calls and not charge you for the pleasure?
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Male impotence

By janmecir (54 reviews) from Buckfastleigh , 30 Oct 2008

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Show review anywayHide

Was expectant about this film considering I've recently watched - and been captivated by - the directors earlier film L'Ennui.

And it started off promisingly enough. You've got Jean-Pierre Darrousin (in pic above) off with wife in the car to pick up the kids from summer school; he's drinking and driving, getting more p---ed and more p---ed off - and she's getting p---ed off (with him) - and it seems to be boiling over nicely with nasty marital discord and distemper.

Then she disappears; it's the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on a road heading towards Bordeaux. And he goes into a contrite panic, desperately driving around trying to find her.

There's parallels to be drawn with L'Ennui: mid-life crisis hurtling neurotically into angst-driven melt-down; disappointment septically seeping out of disappointing life's; angry wounds of jealous male impotence being touched painfully on and hurt.

Darrousin picks up a hitcher - an almost parodically 'silent' dark and moody stranger. Who of course happens to be a brutal murderer on the run. And the film soon is sliding and declining down the phony contrived chute of the 'Thriller' genre - pushing at you the narrative 'tricks' of tension you're supposed to be feeling anxious about.

At which point i started losing interest.

I don't like being manipulated. Especially when i can see how the manipulation is being formulated and formatted. All too predictable. Even when it seems to be - unpredictably - springing suprising 'twists'.

The film (this film) just becomes a film then. Merely a film - of type; reductive, generic.
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Surprisingly gripping

By a customer from Innerleithen , 23 Oct 2008

I thought it was going to be a film about marital tensions, but it turned out to be a film full of another sort of tension: an edge-of-the seat kind where one has the feeling that disaster is just a round the corner. The disaster hinted at didn't happen, but another did. After the initial scene-setting I was gripped for the rest of the film.
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