‘Lost bullet’ film review: French actioner worth finding time for
Lost bullet. Like its title this French film is very much in-your-face. Its poster has a bullet piercing through almost half the letters of its title, announcing that if you have come for nuances, you ought to look elsewhere.
But don’t hold that against the movie. For the film leans in to its no-nuances, all action vibe so heavily it’s hard not to be impressed by it.
Most of this leaning in is done by stuntman turned actor Alban Lenoir who plays Lino.
Lino is the best mechanic to meet if you wish to alter your vehicle so it could punch through layers of concrete without hurting you. (Now, why you would want a vehicle to do that, I am not asking.)
The film starts with Lino and an accomplice trying to rob a jewelry store, with the aid of one such altered vehicle. Only, something goes wrong and Lino ends up in jail.
Impressed by Lino’s skills, the French police- or rather the brigade headed by a cop named Charas(Ramzy Bedia)- hires him to do up the cops’ cars so that they could chase down and if needed smash to pieces ‘go fast’ vehicles. (A short Google search reveals that go fast refers to the phenomenon by which criminals carry large amounts of drugs in fast moving vehicles, trying to beat cops in a sometimes literal race for life)
Charas is so impressed by Lino’s skills he even procures an early release order for him, so that he could work full time for the cops. Only, things go wrong when one of Charas’ colleague shoots him dead. Lino is framed for the murder.
The only thing that could help Lino now is getting the titular lost bullet- the one the culprit fired from his gun to kill Charas. The bullet is lodged in a car. Of course, it is.
In the course of getting the car/bullet to the authorities, Lino does these: things
1.Take on a police station full of cops all by himself, using nothing but bare hands, metallic chairs, a police shield and a laptop computer. (How did he use the computer? Clue: he didn’t type on it).
2.Drive a car on fire through public roads at a great speed.
3.Hook a cop’s car on to a metallic embellishment he added to his own vehicle and then use it as a shield for when other cops shoot at him.
These are not the only fantastic feats Lino does to save his own ass. Neither have I given them in a chronological order.
It’s just some of the incredible action bits- in a film chockfull of them- that immediately popped in my mind when I thought of the film.
You may have guessed from my descriptions that the action scenes are preposterous. However, the debutante director Guillaume Pierret has a knack for making even the most over-the-top sequences look grittily believable, that too with the apparently low budget he has been given.
The film landed on Netflix early this year. I for one am already looking forward to this director’s next one.
