Director Mélanie Laurent’s new film is a cheeky, rollicking crime saga based on actual events that seem impossible to believe.
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| Bruno Sulak (Lucas Bravo) and lover Annie (Léa Luce Busato) make a formidable team, but they soon realize that their luck can't hold out forever. |
He was young and cordial, politely asking each check-out clerk to empty her till, while his partner similarly prompted the manager to empty the safe in the upstairs office. Both Sulak and his colleague brandished guns to show they were serious, but never fired them, or roughed up the citizenry; Sulak made a point of non-violence.
Coupled with a “shake up the establishment” air of defiance, Sulak quickly developed a reputation as a “Robin Hood of crime,” and was dubbed a real-life Arsène Lupin.
A civil understanding apparently existed between the French gendarmes and such low-level criminals, from the late 1960s to the early ’80s; grudging respect existed on both sides, as long as unspoken boundaries remained in place. This attitude was fueled, in part, by disenchantment with the government, and — during those latter years — public pushback against the pro-capitalist policies of newly elected President François Mitterrand.
Indeed, Sulak’s initial robberies were cheered by citizens concerned that the explosive growth of supermarkets would drive beloved family shops out of business.
Although Laurent and co-scripter Christophe Deslandes acknowledge being inspired by French author Philippe Jaenada’s 2013 book, Sulak, they’ve taken occasional liberties. Bruno’s “outlaw love” Thalie has been reshaped into Annie Bragnier (Léa Luce Busato, in a stylish big-screen debut), who takes a more active role as getaway driver.
But the overall arc of Bruno’s crime career is accurate, and the sensuous interludes with Annie enhance what quickly becomes an energetically frothy romp. There’s also a strong echo of 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, due to Sulak’s cat-and-mouse antics with dogged police inspector George Moréas (Yvan Attal).
The film opens with one of Bruno’s typical supermarket robberies. Annie sits nervously behind the wheel of their getaway car, while her lover’s charm holds everybody’s attention. Later, when interviewed by the gendarmes, the cashiers never even noticed Bruno’s formidably large partner, Drago (Steve Tientcheu), who went upstairs to the manager’s office.
The trio takes off long before said gendarmes arrive, Annie skillfully maneuvering their car through the city’s tightly packed streets. The mood is exhilarating, fueled by giddy adrenaline; Bruno and Annie’s subsequent lovemaking is similarly passionate.
The delectably suave Bravo — a rising French star best known on these shores as Chef Gabriel, in TV’s Emily in Paris— plays Bruno as an ardent creature of sun, sea and open spaces; it becomes clear that, like a bird, he’ll always resist being caged. That makes his chosen profession more problematic, since capture seems inevitable.
Ah, but what happens after he gets captured ... well, that’s when the fun begins.
Busato’s Annie is saucy, earthy and sharply perceptive; the actress also gets considerable mileage from her pouty lips and come-hither gaze. But Busato and Laurent ensure that she’s much more than eye-candy; Annie is lover and partner. She also has a practical side that recognizes the long-range futility of the game Bruno plays with such élan ... but she loves him enough to enjoy the wild ride for as long as possible.
Although Drago is an accomplished partner, his girlfriend Marika (Léo Chalié) is a stronger grounding influence. Drago also is troubled when Bruno — loyal to his friends (to a fault) — allows their gang to be augmented by Patrick (David Murgia). It’s obvious, from the moment he appears, that Patrick will be Trouble.
That said, he does serve one purpose. During a celebratory nightclub gathering, Patrick’s chance encounter with Steve Jovanovic (Radivoje Bukvic) proves fortuitous. When Bruno enters the second phase of his larcenous career — graduating to bolder, daytime jewelry store heists — Steve will be at his side.
I can’t say more without giving away too much; the astonishing arc of Bruno’s career is — deservedly — the stuff of legend.
Attal’s Moréas is delightful: a rumpled, chain-smoking, pragmatic pursuer who understands that patience is an inspector’s secret weapon. At first merely annoyed by his team’s inability to stop these brazen supermarket heists, Moréas soon adopts an amused, grudging respect for his adversary.
Bukvic makes the resourceful and methodical Steve the ultimate partner: even more loyal to Bruno, than the latter is to his friends. They become a formidable team, anticipating each other’s movements with precision.
Laurent and editor Audrey Simonaud deftly pace their film; breathtaking heist sequences are intercut with idealistic confessional conversations between Bruno and Annie, the latter’s gaze growing more concerned as this saga moves from its first to second, and then third acts.
Unfortunately ...
Laurent and cinematographer Stéphane Vallée badly mar their film with an increasingly annoying series of vertigo-inducing montages: cockeyed camera angles, tableaus that sway back and forth like a ship buffeted by swells, and even upside-down sequences that rip us out of the action.
Camera weirdness for its own sake serves no purpose; it’s distracting and self-indulgent. And it damn near ruins the film’s giddy, light-hearted atmosphere.
That aside, there’s otherwise much to enjoy here. Laurent and Deslandes build their narrative to the suspenseful, ambiguous climax that capped Bruno’s career.
And I’ve no doubt viewers then will hit the Internet, wanting to know more about this real-life ancestor of the fictitious Lupin.
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