In this week's Expatica cinema section - in collaboration with Picturenose - James Drew reviews 'J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster' plus a selection of other films now on release across Europe.

J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster
 
Writer/director's Samuel Benchetrit's film, thanks to its multi-vignette format, has been compared structurally with Pulp Fiction (1994), but in fact, it is the 'slacker' mood of Kevin Smith's marvellous Clerks (1994) that informs the large part of the narrative.

A French motorway diner forms the backdrop to the four interconnecting stories - the first see Franck (Edouard Baer) botching a hold-up at the diner; the waitress Suzie (Anna Mouglalis), however, takes pity on him and shares her own hard-luck story. Part two sees two incompetent kidnappers Leon (Bouli Lanners) and Paul (Serge Lariviere) snatch a teenage girl from her rich family but, unfortunately for them, she is suicidal and her family don't want her back.

A dialogue between two ageing French rock stars (Alain Bashung and Arno playing themselves) who meet by chance at the diner forms the third segment, while the finale sees four ex-criminals smuggling their old partner out of hospital to visit their old hideout which has since been turned into hey! the diner in question, before the coda returns to the Franck and Suzie story.

Genuinely engaging in parts and beautiful in monochrome throughout, J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster  is a pleasant enough take on modest but failed aspirations and unlikely contentment. The performances fall, pleasantly, somewhere between knowing self-reference and genuine pathos, but the gimmick does feel a little forced at times.

First and fourth vignettes take the plaudits, while, stylistically, the film delights in using an entire range of cinematic devices, including a sped-up silent-film flashback culminating in an iris shot. The multiplicity approach works because Benchetrit, whose previous work was Janis et John (2003), successfully creates a different mood for each segment, even if the quality of the individual stories varies. Still, it's a diner well worth popping into.

113 mins.
 

The Game Plan

Moderately interesting story of rugged superstar quarterback Joe Kingman (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson), whose Boston-based team is chasing a championship. A 'serial bachelor', Kingman is living the ultimate fantasy: he's rich, famous and the life of the party.

But, when he discovers the 7-year-old daughter Peyton (Madison Pettis) that he never knew he had, from his young former wife of years back, parties, practices and dates must take a back seat to ballet classes, bedtime stories and dolls. A little too bland to work as no-brainer matinée entertainment, Andy Fickman's The Game Plan comes through reasonably well for children, but much less so for grown-ups.

110 mins.
 
 
The Oxford Murders

Obviously following in the wake of The Da Vinci Code (2006) et al, maths and murder combine in Alex de la Inglesia's university whodunit, a polished but verbose adaptation of Guillermo Martinez's novel. Arthur Seldom (John Hurt) is a high-flying Wittgensteinian who is certain that 'truth' cannot be known, who finds a surprising counterpart in American graduate student Martin (Elijah Wood) who arrives in Oxford hoping that Seldom will oversee his thesis that cites logic as the route to all answers. But a complex murder, with a note from the killer containing a circle and a mathematical message, 'The first of the series', intrudes, and the games begin..

107 mins.
 
Drillbit Taylor

Truly dumb but, thanks to Owen Wilson, likeable and in places very funny, Drillbit Taylor 'tackles' the issue of bullying, with Wade (Nate Hartley), Ryan (Troy Gentile) and Jim (Ian Roberts), hiring alleged 'bodyguard to the stars' Drillbit Taylor (Wilson) after they've been beaten up by the resident campus sociopath Filkins (Alex Frost). In fact, Taylor is nothing more than a criminally minded slob, with his eye on stealing from his new clients to finance a trip to Canada...

102 mins.

'Expatica's weekly cinema-review section is brought to you in collaboration with Picturenose.com'  

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(expatica 2008)