Review this title

'La raison du plus faible' from Lucas Belvaux is a story about 4 men, 1 woman and a kid. This is a story about friendship, a story that opposes decency and adversity, bitterness and boredom…
The movie could be depicted as a 'social' thriller if not a socialistic one that has the merit to dig up questions buried away by our sometimes inhuman society. What would you do if you had no perspective, no money and only dreams to be shattered? What would you do if the system was not allowing the possibility of a better life for some or redemption for others? What would you do if your more and more precarious life was being pushed that close to the edge? Would you react or would you fall? 'La raison du plus faible' provides us with an answer by telling the story of these men who will believe again that a dream is feasible and who will take arms to get the money where it is and steal it because they believe this is their rights. This is also a story about choices where everybody takes his own responsibility; a story where there are no bad guys but no good ones, a terrible story made of laugh, tears, blood and sorrow….
Slow at times but served with an outstanding cast and a cinematography perfectly matching the protagonists lack of escape , 'La raison du plus faible' remains a movie to be seen… A movie that seems to whisper: 'continue to dream or die'…

13 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Imagine Michael Mann's 'Heat' crossed with Ken Loach's gritty northern England- and Scotland based social dramas, and you have an idea of what this film feels like - a heist film with thoroughly uncool, long-term dole recipients and other downtrodden working class folk as the perpetrators, instead of Robert DeNiro in post-modern Californian seafront diggings dashing from holdup to holdup... Lucas Belvaux brings together the disparate elements of the heist film and the anti-globalisation social commentary in fine style, though, and the story thoroughly engaged me. The elegiac, minimal soundtrack was perfectly deployed as well. Mr. Belvaux plays the hangdog career criminal better than almost anyone else, and no one plays quiet domestic desperation as well as Natacha Regnier, either... highly recommended!

11 out of 13 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

I first had some difficulties to watch this movie, because I found that some actors where not really well directed (Lucas Belvaux for example), saying there text 'falsely'. But I must admit that it is just because I'm not used to a realistic way of acting, but after a few minutes, I slowly got into it....to find that the actors were really fantastic, reminding me of this time when every characters in a movie had a strong personality, like the old french movies. Afterwhile, I found that the photo was more than good, and the filming well done. I am still surprised that some talented people like Lucas Belvaux and his crew can bring you to a rendez-vous with humanity in its most meaningful sense: in this movie you will not only find a social view of our time, but also real friendship, love, and sincerity. Finally, Lucas Belvaux has really succeeded in showing a tragic part of the human condition, but also to mingle it with humor and tenderness. A masterpiece.

7 out of 11 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Lucas Belvaux has contrived to make a fine film laced with social comment without resorting to the preachiness of Ken Loach primarily because, unlike Loach, Belvaux knows how to sugar the pill by first entertaining and then leaving the audience to spot any social comment. We are in Liege and the local steel mill has sucked the life out of the workforce and then spat them out. One guy has lost both legs in the plant, another is his 'carer', Belvaux himself is an ex-con working shifts at a brewery and checking in with the police every week. Eric Caravaca is a young 'house husband' whilst his wife, Natacha Regnier (and, incidentally, my prime motive for seeing this film) is worn out from long hours in a laundry. All could use some serious money yet with the exception of Pirmet (Belvaux) all are upright citizens with no clue as to how to pull off a 'caper'. A plan, however, is devised, which involves knocking over a safe in the office of Gilbert Melki (a fine cameo; he appears at the end for probably less than ten minutes of screen time). Life of course would be nothing without complications; the plan had been devised excluding Patrick (Caravaca) on the grounds that as the only married man and father among the group he is less expendable; when, however, he learns about it he deals himself in whereupon Pirmet bows out, leaving the way clear for a 'Crime Does Not Pay' cock-up. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, a brilliant film which combines the caper with the social comment and benefits from outstanding performances. One to buy on DVD.

3 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

3 unemployed men with bleak futures decide to try a robbery to turn their lives around.
The film is beautifully photographed, and has a gritty sense of realism and dark sense of humor, along with a deliberate pace some may find off-putting.
This isn't a heist film about action, but rather about hopelessness, poverty, and moral choices. It isn't afraid to let us feel ambiguity at what the men are doing, at the same time creating characters that can't help but elicit our sympathy, and make us wonder, 'at what point does society create its own criminals'?
There are some weak spots – the men are almost too perfect a cross section of the down-and out; the young man whose schooling and hard work have left him nowhere, the unwanted man in a wheelchair and the middle aged man phased out for someone younger. I'm not quite sure I buy them as friends in the first place, but once I accepted that slight contrivance, the film worked well on all it's levels; character study, political tract and crime thriller.
It reminded me of something Sidney Lumet might have made in the 1970s. For my taste, that's a good thing.

0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink