And so you have two of France's premier heavyweight actors (one of whom I only know from his name being on the posters for Jean De Florette, my ignorance and not his lack of celebrity I am sure) facing off in a town which isn't big enough for the both of them. Two cops with Depardieu painted as the cop gone bad (throughout the preamble this is flagged up: "he wasn't always like that") and Auteuil as the maverick cop who- sigh- isn't afraid to bend the rules if it means getting the job done. They're on the hunt for a ruthless gang of armoured car hijackers who leave no clues. Each is in charge of a separate police unit and, to add a little spice, the one who lands the gang will get to be the Chief of Police (or something).
It's all very routine with hints that there is something in their past that will become significant later, especially regarding Auteiul's wife, but never actually do. Instead we get the usual head-to-head where tempers escalate but nothing occurs due to a distraction, we get a slick pace where events happen more quickly than is credible (even suspending disbelief regarding the mad events themselves), we get tense music playing as contrasting scenes of the men doing their job are played out and we get the final fantastical denouement where the men push each other beyond ethical limits in their desire to outdo the other one. And then it ends with a final twist.
There isn't much to commend it really, it's a standard film which looks very of its time already (the clumsy slo-mo flashbacks and sterile white prison cells that look like they've come straight from a Björk video especially) but it's certainly better than Righteous Kill which was also supposed to be 'the new Heat'. And that's damning with faint praise isn't it?
