L’immortel is Richard Berry‘s newest film, based on Franz-Olivier Giesbert‘s book, starring Jean Reno, Marina Foïs and Kad Merad.

Plot:
Basically, 22 Bullets is Kill Bill with Jean Reno instead of Uma Thurman: Charly (Jean Reno) is a retired mafia man. He lives a calm life with his family but suddenly there’s a massive attack on his life and Charly gets hit 22 times. But he survives. As he slowly recovers, he tries to understand what happened, who attacked him and why. And he wants to get revenge.

22 Bullets is firmly set in its genre conventions. There is nothing exciting, new or extraordinary about it – but it’s a very nice, practically textbook example of a revenge thriller that works fine. You know, it’s that kind of film.

There’s loads of clichés in the movie. There’s practically not one character that isn’t a walking-talking stereotype. But you’re willing to forgive that since it’s that kind of film and the actors are actually quite good. Jean Reno is a bit over the top sometimes (but, say it with me, it’s that kind of film) and makes you wonder why he does mostly crap (well, Léon made you wonder. And Le grand bleu made you wonder. This movie remdins you that you wondered, though). Kad Merad doesn’t have many dimensions to work with, but the few he does have, he plays well. The same goes for Marina Foïs.

The story is completely predictable. The only thing that I didn’t know before was the bad guy’s exact reason. But that’s fine, too, since it’s – yes, exactly – that kind of film.

Richard Berry is just as adequate as the rest of the film. The pacing’s good, some of the shots are quite nice and especially the violent scenes (which are quite graphic) are well done [though the fake blood-splosions when Charly gets shot are really fake].

It’s probably unnecessary to spend money to see the film in the theatre. But if you want to have an evening with violent entertainment and a lot of catharsis, you’d do worse than to rent this film or see it on TV.

Summarising:  It’s very good for what it is: a conventional, predictable revenge movie. If you know what to expect, you won’t be disappointed. You know, it’s just that kind of film. ;)