Anyone else think how it’s genuinely weird it is that so many horror directors suddenly find themselves directing action flicks nowadays? If it isn’t the likes of James Wan, Scott Derrickson, Andy Muschietti or David F. Sandler taking up the baton of various comic book movies, you also have filmmakers such as Neil Marshall and Adam Windgard also signing on to swap blades and fangs for automatic firearms and big-ass explosions. Sometimes it works a treat as those fear-based sensibilities translate pretty well into the world of battered tough guys and disintegrating real estate; however, other times you get whatever the hell happened with Bastille Day, a France-set thriller that was directed by Eden Lake and The Woman In Black helmer, James Watkins.
Known for creating harsh, uncompromising levels of tension in his movies (Eden Lake still makes me furious to this day just by thinking about it), the director should have been a safe bet presenting a plot involving domestic terrorism and corrupt lawmen; but what we got instead was a compelling reason why Idris Elba probably shouldn’t be James Bond…
It’s the eve of Bastille Day in Paris, but we’re about to find out that prolific pickpocket Michael Mason is about to rue the day he chose an easy mark to target. Hoping to eventually swipe enough wallets and jewelry to end his drifter days and get him on a plane back to his native United States, he takes a bag sitting by the side of a distraught looking woman only to discover after dumping it that it contained a couple of pounds of plastic explosive. You see, the crying woman had gotten cold feet while attempting to plant the device at the office of the French Nationalist Party and was planning to throw the bomb into the Seine; however, after Mason took it, the resulting explosion kills four people and plonks the hapless thief on a most wanted list.
Enter volatile CIA operative Sean Briar who is on his last chance with his superiors thanks to some heavy-handed tactics. However, those same tactics prove to be pretty handy after he threatens, beats and terrifies his way to Mason’s location and arrests him. However, in the midst of his interrogation, Briar actually starts to believe the ridiculous story this panicking pickpocket is trying to tell him and after it’s all but confirmed by an attack on his secret CIA safe house, the two men have to go on the run to figure out how to unravel the conspiracy they’ve stumbled across.
The best way to do that is to locate the woman who ditched the bag in the first place, but while open political unrest bubbles on the angry streets of Paris, our mismatched, bickering heroes discover that this terrorist cell isn’t what it seems. In fact, they might not even be a terrorist cell at all as the bullets fly and the plot thickens.
Renamed “The Take” in America – presumably because no one can be bothered to look up the national holidays of other countries – I’m still finding it hard to connect this incredibly slight and forgettable actioner with a director who has manged to successfully freak me out on numerous occasions. I’ve already mentioned Eden Lake and it’s incredibly traumatic denouement, but James Watkins is also responsible for the infamous Black Mirror episode, “Shut Up And Dance” that had a similar, gut punching effect, which proves he’s a filmmaker who knows how to pull some serious, emotional strings. However, while I wasn’t expecting a similar, harrowing effect from a euro-set buddy movie, I was stunned by just how extraordinarily flat Bastille Day was compared to what Watkins had once previously achieved. Just how flat is it? Well, let’s put it this way, when was the last time you watched an Idris Elba movie that had virtually no charm whatsoever?
For a start, the movie feels like it’s been filmed like it’s a Sky Movies premiere from the mid-2000s as everything from dialogue exchanges to fight sequences all feel clunkily edited and hastily shot. Complex fight choreography that sees the leads brawl with villains in either the confines of an apartment or even in the back of a van feel sloppy, poorly staged and lacks the impact needed to really sell the danger. But while the plot takes some interesting in-roads when it comes to twisting the current political landscape of France (the baddies are crooked cops “faking” various terrorist attacks in order to take the heat off of a bank heist they’re planning), it’s let down even further by the fact that we’re being asked to follow some of the most uninteresting and uninspiring main characters I’ve witnessed in a action movie for bloody ages.
You’d think that Elba could nail an uncomprising, unstoppable CIA agent with his eyes closed, but while he certainly fits the physical bill, the bullish Briar is little more than a string of action hero tropes roughly smooshed into the shape of a man. The fact that the actor’s usual electricity is unable to spark life into this character at all is especially worrying as Elba isn’t exactly a newbie to playing hulking badasses. But while he’s only operating at around 40% of Elba-power, he’s still doing better than everyone around him despite the fact that he’s responsable for singing the legitimately cringe-inducing sing that plays over the end credits. For example, Game Of Thones’ Richard Madden may be easy on the eyes if you like that sort of thing, but he’s actually pretty terrible as the pickpocket suddenly dropped into the middle of (and partially responsible for) a terrorist bombing. Having virtually no chemistry with anyone in the entire cast (pretty problematic for a buddy movie) and struggling with a truly atrocious Anerican accent, he’s unable to elicit any of the charm and vulnerability vital for us to give a shit about a career thief who accidently kills four people because he stole a bag from a crying woman. In fact, there’s about at least four British actors present here all required to adopt ever shakier American dialects (including Eden Lake’s Kelly Reilly), and the fact that there’s blatantly not a real actor from the States involved just weirdly makes it even more noticable.
While desperately trying to be Die Hard Avec Un Vengence, I’m not sure what to make of a political, buddy movie, action thriller that somehow fails to be provocative, fun, or even exciting despite having a recognisable cast and a proven director, but maybe the US title change to The Take ultimately makes more sense. After all, there’s certainly no give here, and it’s blatantly taking the piss.
Bland and derivative, not even Idris Elba’s tough-guy drawl can yank Bastille Day out of the movie jail it finds itself in. Quite how you go from the harrowing ending of Eden Lake to whatever insipid drivel this is supposed to be, I’m not entirely sure, but if we could avoid it happening again, I’d certainly be thankful.
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