"Cruel" had big ambitions: to renew the serial killer with a very precise depiction of the murderer's milieu :and from that point of view , it can be considered a successful movie: the scenes with the bookseller who looks as though he already has on foot in the grave ,the simple but wise house help and the disabled father ring true. Maurice Poli ,an actor who enjoyed a small reputation both in France and in Italy ,finds his final part here :and it takes a lot of guts to portray such a human wreck , probably after a stroke. A legume ,nothing more .The house help suggests he be taken to a home for retired people but the son does not want to hear of it ,because he would be be alone in his house .
Actually ,he is not alone ; there's always a captive in the basement;probably bearing a grudge to the whole world, he takes his revenge by killing his fellow men with cruelty (check the title) : he asks them why he should release them, if they have a true reason to live; "this is the last picture you'll see of your child" he says while showing an X ray of a foetus (his baby);on the other hand , the "rules" ,a la "transporter " get in the way.
The depiction of the lugubrious suburban life with not the slightest hope is sight provides a good background, but it's not all good news. The appearance of Laure,the educated artist who falls head over heels for this not-very-handsome crude man is not very plausible ; their romance scenes, enhanced by a syrupy music , seem to have been taken by force from a Claude Lelouch movie ; the uncle, an ex-boxer , is not very credible either;and the interminable cop's speech gets on one's nerves. The last third of the movie is a big disappointment ,being bland and preposterous .
Maybe the killer had found the treasure of the book he reads night after night to his bedridden daddy; of course the childhood trauma is present :he "killed" his mom who died in childbirth ; but if it is so,why this nostalgia for the golden years ,for these pictures of fun at sea as a child , for the old draftbooks .
This movie is a curate's egg.
Actually ,he is not alone ; there's always a captive in the basement;probably bearing a grudge to the whole world, he takes his revenge by killing his fellow men with cruelty (check the title) : he asks them why he should release them, if they have a true reason to live; "this is the last picture you'll see of your child" he says while showing an X ray of a foetus (his baby);on the other hand , the "rules" ,a la "transporter " get in the way.
The depiction of the lugubrious suburban life with not the slightest hope is sight provides a good background, but it's not all good news. The appearance of Laure,the educated artist who falls head over heels for this not-very-handsome crude man is not very plausible ; their romance scenes, enhanced by a syrupy music , seem to have been taken by force from a Claude Lelouch movie ; the uncle, an ex-boxer , is not very credible either;and the interminable cop's speech gets on one's nerves. The last third of the movie is a big disappointment ,being bland and preposterous .
Maybe the killer had found the treasure of the book he reads night after night to his bedridden daddy; of course the childhood trauma is present :he "killed" his mom who died in childbirth ; but if it is so,why this nostalgia for the golden years ,for these pictures of fun at sea as a child , for the old draftbooks .
This movie is a curate's egg.