On the Run (2004)

Such a frustrating disappointment

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Belgian film from 2003, the first part of a trilogy that I had never heard of and that was recommended to me by a cinéphile friend, precisely, from Belgium.With only this movie Lucas Belvaux is a candidate to enter my personal Olympus of Filmmakers. I do not know how the other two movies are yet but this one is good cinema, shocking, sober but extremely violent. It has been 15 years since it was made but it still stands as a solid production with a forceful story. Belvaux himself (who made an acting career in France) leads the cast as Bruno, a leftist ex-militant who escapes from prison, where he has served 15 years of a sentence. Outside the world changed, but not his head. Bruno returns to settle accounts to those who were traitors to the cause, to fight for the proletarian masses, to exterminate the oppressors: so convinced is the man that he unleashes a wave of violence and manifests features of extreme cruelty that catch you by surprise. Now I'm going for the second installment, in which characters that were secondary in the first one come to the fore. Winner of the Prix Louis Delluc and the award of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics for Best Film of the Year.

A man escapes from prison. He then tries to meet his old contacts and re-organize his underground inner circle involving drugs and revolution. However, he does this only to find that most of his fellows-in-arms are either dead, locked up, or have abandoned the revolutionary lifestyle and *GASP!* sold-out by getting families and jobs! Discovering this lack of societal significance, he is eventually forced to flee the country, after which he both literally and symbolically falls into a gap of nothingness. Aw, what a shame.(That's it, by the way. That's the whole movie. Erm... spoiler alert?)As a technical treat and a minimalist story, it has its value and it is interesting to watch. It's just a little obnoxious to follow a movie about a person grasping to uphold his values only to "randomly" (as a point) fall into a blank hole. I get it, but I don't care for it.--PolarisDiB

too bad the subtitles did not include all the chatter (some of the police band radio, the tv, small bits of conversation) -- LOVED this picture which was shot, edited, directed and acted with clarity, economy and emotion played simply & directly. lucas did amazing work as both actor & director (& writer) and richly deserves the accolades he is getting on this project.use of the location was also good, i actually recognised the gare de grenoble as they approached it on the train & one really got the feeling of being EN CAVALE with all the POV shots in the cars, on the train, going through the woods, climbing --

If he didn't exactly invent/patent the concept of the trilogy using the same event(s) setting(s) and characters then Alan Ayckbourne certainly exploited it to the full and will be forever associated with the genre via such plays as 'The Norman Conquests' and 'House', 'Garden'. Lucas Belvaux borrows the concept and applies a touch of spin. In the Ayckbourne works the characters tend to have equal weight in each play so that when one walks offstage in a play set in the Living Room he/she will walk ON stage at the same chronological moment in a play set in the Garden. With Belvaux leading players of one part of the trilogie are reduced to spear-carriers in others. The PR says that each movie stands alone and may be viewed in any order. Yes and no. Perversely I saw them in reverse order, 3, 2, 1 and though it WAS clear what was going on it would certainly make for a richer viewing to see them sequentially. One: This introduces - however fleetingly - all of the principals but it is primarily the story of Bruno Le Roux (Belvaux himself) a political prisoner or terrorist depending on your point of view, who has busted out of the slammer and come to Grenoble to cut up a few old touches. Catherine Frot gets the Lion's share of the supporting roles as Jeanne Rivet who, 20 years ago, was part of the Revolutionary movement alongside Le Roux but now doesn't want to know. She is now teaching school and two of her colleagues, Agnes Manise (Dominique Blanc) and Cecile Costes (Ornella Muti) will figure peripherally in One and star in Two (Muti) and 3 (Blanc). Also important to the plot is Jacquillat (Patrick Descamps) an underworld character. Whilst on the lam Bruno stumbles across a man beating a woman savagely. He intervenes, realizes the woman is a junkey and the man a dealer. He beats the man and invites the woman to help herself from the dealer's stash. However, with cops crawling all over she has to dump the dope. She confesses to Bruno that her husband, a detective, has been supplying her for years but suddenly stopped. She takes Bruno home with her (husband is on the graveyard shift) and then borrows the key to a holiday chalet from a colleague (Muti), who is not best pleased to become involved in what she assumes to be a sordid liaison. Cecile has her own problems, a husband behaving erratically and she prevails upon Agnes cop husband, Pascal, to investigate. We now know all we need to enjoy (or not, as the case may be) Two: (the story of Cecile and erratic hubby) and Three: (The story of Agnes and Pascal). If Belvaux doesn't quite succeed in bringing off three genres - Thriller-Comedy-Polar then he makes a decent stab at it and joins the ranks of Actor-Directors led by Orson Welles with an honorable mention for Clint Eastwood. If you enjoy Policiers the chances are you will enjoy Three; if comedy is your thing the chances are you will be disappointed with Two; if Thrillers light your fire you'll probably like more than dislike One. 6/10