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Jan Kounen

Renegade * Jan Kounen (2004)

Wat a great film! Vincent Cassel is Mike is Mike Blueberry (who gave the name of this film to the European market) a trouble-kid who is sent to an uncle in Western-America. He ends up among the Indians, but later becomes sheriff of a small town. An old enemy comes to his town and he, like everybody else, is looking for the gold in the mountains in the Indian lands. Kounen presents a lot of Indian rituals and drug-influenced visions that remind of the early scenes of “Enter The Void”. The film goes from classic Western to more adventure-like filming, to surrealistic and completely visionary scenes. The result is very impressive and reminds a bit of the also great “White Lightnin’“.

Dobermann * Jan Kounen (1997)

“Dobermann” is quite like “Taxi” in several regards. Both films are French, both are action-comedies, both are about bank robberies and in both the police are portrayed as idiots. “Dobermann” seems to want to be a bit more serious, harder, more “nouvelle violence”, more “Killing Zoe” than the “Taxi” trilogy but fails in the attempt. Whereas “Taxi” is amusing for its sillyness (especially the first one) and “Killing Zoe” has a fair combination between ‘comedy’ and violence, “Dobermann” is not silly enough to be really funny, but too silly to be serious. This time both the robbers and the police are not too bright and during the film when the more violent parts come, the silly elements are not far away enough. Nope, this is not one of the better “nouvelle violence” films.