Product Description

Two detectives investigate a serial murderer.
Genre: Foreign Film - French
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-JUN-2005
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14141 in DVD
• Brand: RENO,JEAN
• Released on: 2001-10-16
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
Legendary police commissioner Niémans (Jean Reno) travels to a remote university village in the Alps to solve a grisly murder while hotheaded Lieutenant Kerkerian (Hate's Vincent Cassel) is investigating the desecration of the tomb of a young girl killed in an auto accident 20 years ago. When the detectives discover that the incidents are related, they reluctantly join forces. The Crimson Rivers looks French but feels American. If it doesn't hit the heights of The Silence of the Lambs or Seven, it bests many of the thrillers that have followed in their wake. Mathieu Kassovitz directs as if this were high art, which is actually to the film's benefit: the cast is terrific (including Jean-Pierre Cassel, Vincent's father), the cinematography is stunning, and the classy score evokes The Exorcist. Although the mountaintop showdown at the end doesn't quite work, The Crimson Rivers is still a superior entrant into an increasingly overcrowded genre. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

From The New Yorker
A grim and tenebrous thriller from the young French director Matthieu Kassovitz. A mournful detective (Jean Reno) is summoned to an Alpine town, where local people have been turning up not only dead but bereft of vital components, such as eyes and hands. The place is home to a college so snotty and distinguished that the admissions procedure appears to be modelled on the creation of a master race; this policy is unlikely to be tried on the average American campus, but it leads our hero round some narrative twists of high absurdity. Kassovitz lets the film leak away from him; the spooky pacing of the first half is slowly abandoned, and Reno-who casts his usual dour spell-is forced to team up with a younger and less beguiling cop (Vincent Cassel). The final minutes, on a mountaintop, are a blizzard of implausibility. With Dominique Sanda as a blind nun. In French. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Just like your favorite horror/thriller book on a TV screen
Watching this movie made me think of what a wonderful book it would make! It had mystery, gruesome murders, great humor, action, fantastic landscape of the Alps and it was twists and turns of intrigue and a guessing game of "who did it?" But don't get me wrong, I loved it as a movie, just that it reminds me of the type of horror books I always read.

Jean Reno has always been one of my favorite actors, his cold stare, that pointy nose, the sarcasm and that ticking brain are always a great pairing when he plays a cop on a trail of hot murders. He is joined in this movie by Vincent Cassel who was brilliant in Brotherhood of The Wolf but he was insanely witty and funny while kicking some criminal booty in this one. As the viewer we get to see these two cops who start of working on two separate cases come together smack center in a middle of a mystery. Reno follows a slew of mutilated corpses with no eyes and their hand cut off while Cassel investigates a tomb disgraced by spray painted swastikas. It seems that the girl who was dead is walking among the living but that is not entirely the case. And when Reno runs into someone who looks just like the dead girl things get even trickier. The person who they search for is both a target and a suspect.

The concept of "Crimson Rivers" and it's sequel ; "Crimson Rivers, Angels of Apocalypse" is very interesting. It has to do with purification of the blood, and of breeding "perfect" human species. How that is tied to this story is not something I can tell, for spoiling a movie or a book is a huge crime!

All I can say is that the views of the Alps are breathtaking, the action is tight, there's fighting and chases, and so many twists and turns in the mystery that the end is a sweet reward. Fun movie if you want to spend a nice afternoon in from of the TV, wrapped in a warm blanket watching the snowy scenery and solving the puzzle along with our heroes.
I would also recommend the sequel which I watched twice all ready which was even better but very different in comparison to they way this was done.

Stunning and atmospheric gothic French "policier"
(This review relates to the French special edition release in THX. French title: Les Rivieres Pourpres) From the second the film starts, it is evident that France's Matthieu Kassovitz is more than capable of taking-on Hollywood in directing a stunning gothic chiller complete with a first class THX sound track. A badly mutilated body is found high in the Alps. The local police acquire the help of "special" police investigator, Pierre Niemans (Jean Reno), whose intent becomes not just to discover *who* committed the murder but also *why* it was committed. Simultaneously, a young Arab policeman, Karim Abdouf (played by Vincent Cassel of "La Haine"), living some 200km away is called in to investigate the desecration of a little girl's grave and a local school break-in. Both policeman are drawn slowly to the same potential perpetrator, discover two further murders and uncover a terrifying secret behind the murders. I bought the film yesterday in a French supermarket and I've already watched it three times. The style of the film, the photography and camera-work, the music, the twists and turns of the plot all make this a brilliant film. The actors are perfectly cast, with Jean Reno presenting a softer more thoughtful character than in the book of the same name whilst Vincent Cassel displays the edge of racial anger that was so visible in La Haine. The ending will probably generate a lot of discussion as to what exactly it means but, if the film is released in the same special edition form as in France, the additions on the second disc provide a level of insight rarely seen in other special edition DVDs - and supply that elusive answer! Buy it as soon as it is released!

A Red Ominous River Runs in White Snow; Good, Moody Thriller
"The Crimson Rivers" is touted by some as an answer to "Se7en" from French cinema industry. Actually, though it shares some aspects of that Hollywood sleeper hit, "The Crisom Rivers" is a fast-paced, exciting movie, adapted from the bestselling novel of the same title by Jean-Christophe Grange (published in 1998), who wrote the screenplay of this hit movie in France, and is later to write for super-cool action "Vidocq," again a hit there in 2001. Oh, but that's another story, and wait for its release.

Anyway, "The Crimson Rivers" traces the two cops' investigations one after the other, both of which point to one secluded university in the snow-capped Alps. One crackerjack cop sent from Paris (but easily terrified by a dog) Jean Reno encounters a case about a horribly cut body while angry and dissatisfied younger cop Vincent Cassel follows a seemingly minor case about a desecrated grave of a girl killed by accident 20 years ago. These two cases, however, gradually lead them to one deadly secret among the cloistered society, a secret with "Les Rivieres Pourpres."

The story is always engaging, if a bit confusing sometimes, and the terrific leads are great assets of the film. Though the ending of the film sounds too incredible (and it reminded me of that of one Steven Seagal movie), the chain of thrilling actions and breathtaking photography never fails to entertain us. Probably the best thing you get in this film is its stertlingly moody cinematography with gloomy atomosphere done by Thierry Arbogast (famous for "The Fifth Element" and other Besson films). The images of morbidly real dead bodies and vivid white of snow on the high mountains will long remain in your mind after watching this great work.

As far as its story is concerned, "The Crimson Rivers" may be thought as an imitaion of the likes of "Se7en" and other Hollywood thrillers, but the total touch of the film is different. For all some gory scene, the film has less sinister impressions thanks to the believable humane portrayals of two leads and Cassel's fine kung-hu action. Not a classic, but still more engrossing than many average thrillers.

The director Mathieu Kassovitz, known for his acclaimed work as a director "Hate," is, of course, now remembered as an actor who played 'Nino,' the love of charming and lovely Amelie. His father, Peter Kassovitz, is the director of Robin Williams's "Jakob the Liar."