Cash Review

Part of the fun of being a deckhand for the good ship Blogomatic3000 is reviewing DVDs. More often than not, I never know exactly what’s going to arrive in the post and again more often than not, I think it’s fair to say, the DVD screeners are usually fairly obscure fare. As such, I might not know anything other than the film’s title when I push it into the DVD player, which was exactly the case with Cash. What would it be? A hard hitting documentary about capitalism? A rom-com set in a bank? That long-awaited biopic of Australia’s finest tennis player? I was just hoping it wasn’t another godawful 50 Cent gangsta flick.

Turns out, Cash is a fairly charming French heist film, first released in 2008. 2008? I hear you think (I really can hear you. And see you. Put some trousers on for godssakes). What on earth is it doing being released now? Well, Cashstars a certain Jean Dujardin, the now Oscar-nominated lead in The Artist. With near-worthless euros gleaming in their eyes, Metrodome have decided to release this in order to cash in on Dujardin’s sudden success.

There’s nothing wrong with that really. It is the movie business after all. Fortunately, Cash is actually pretty good. Dujardin is the titular rogue, the leader of gang of con-people, who enlist the help of a police detective in order to out-con a rival con-gang led by Jean Reno. A whole load of clever tricks, silly escapades and double-crossing and side-swapping ensues.

Dujardin is as droll and charismatic as he is in The Artist (turns out he can do acting in sound and colour too). He reminds me a lot of a French Hugh Jackman. Reno isn’t on screen much and more or less phones it in, but you can forgive that, because hey, it’s Jean Reno. The flick comes across rather a lot like a Gallic Ocean’s Eleven film (at least I think it does; I haven’t seen an Ocean’s film in about eight years). There are lots of snappy cuts of people zipping up zips and clicking open brief cases, a fair amount of wit and a superficially complex but not really if you pay attention plot.

Other than that, it’s a decently made, quite likable little film. It’s probably not going to wear out its welcome and you probably won’t give it a moment’s thought after you eject the disc, pop it back in its case and replace it alphabetically by title onto your DVD shelf. Still, it’s fun whilst it lasts and serves as a little curio from Dujardin’s past as he skyrockets surely to global superstardom.

The Round Up Review

If you’re looking for a summer feel-good film, look away now. Still with us? Good. The Round Up is a French language period drama, set in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942. The fragile peace of the Jewish communities is rocked as the Nazis tighten their grip on Jewish freedoms before arresting over 13,000 people and transporting them to the Vel’ d’Hiv velodrome. There they are cared for by a small number of tireless nurses and Jean Reno’s Jewish doctor, before being moved on to a work camp. We already know all too well what fate awaited them after that.

The film is painstakingly researched from eyewitness accounts and portrays one of the most disturbing and merciless chapters of history. Writer and director Rose Bosch captures the events of the film with a dignified and humane touch. The film is not exploitative and the terrifying subject matter is handled well. She can thank her cast for putting in excellent performances. There are several parts for very young actors who accredit themselves well. Mathieu Di Concerto is especially good – he plays a boy of about three, so he can’t be much older himself – in his portrayal of an orphan who has no idea what is happening. The same character is played by what is presumably the boy’s real life brother, Romain Di Concerto in the epilogue. Though he is still an infant, his innocence is irrecoverably lost.

There are some stunning scenes in the film. The ‘round up’ itself is particularly gripping and the revelation as to the extent of the arrest as the camera pulls out of the velodrome is quietening. The scenes in which French government makes deals with the Nazis over the fates of their own people is particularly horrible too. It’s isn’t all doom and gloom however – there are touching moments as firemen smuggle out secret notes from the captured Jews and Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds)’s protestant nurse is a source of constant human kindness.

The less well done parts? It’s difficult to criticise a film that attempts to put such a horrific tragedy on screen in such a well-made way. Perhaps the few scenes in which Hitler himself appears were unnecessary – they don’t move the plot forward in any way. It also may have interesting to study the Nazi guards – and French collaborators – more too. I badly wanted to know why and how ordinary people could be brainwashed into treating fellow ordinary humans in such despicable ways; unfortunately this isn’t something the film focuses on. Why didn’t any of them say no? Perhaps there are no simple explanations I guess. The film is first and foremost a historical drama and not a psychological study, after all.

If you’ve any interest at all in the history of the Second World War, or if the treatment of Jews by the Nazis is not something you know too much about, I would whole-heartedly recommend seeking out this film. It is, of course, an event that should never be forgotten and The Round Up is a welcome channel through which people should remember a tragedy.