Someone has clearly remarked to Laurence Lucas how much he resembles Monty Clift and on the strength of that Lucas has presumably checked out some of Clift's movies and seems hell bent on replicating Clift's tortured intensity. Not too much wrong with that except it's one thing to bear a physical resemblance to a great actor but quite another to BE a great actor. First-time director Gilles Marchand does Lucas no favours by casting him as a weirdo, a surgeon who, for reasons never made clear and/or explored, prefers his sexual encounters to be with nubile girls recovering from surgery. His method is slightly less crude than plying them with scotch and involves adding Pentol to their saline drips to effectively anaesthetize them and then diluting the Pentol with water and returning the vials to the drug cupboard with the result that patients begin waking up during surgery. Young trainee nurse Isabelle (Sophie Quinton) rumbles Dr Phillip (Lucas) but is initially attracted to him in what could have been an interesting complication but Marchand is totally inept in his handling of the plot and we are always two steps ahead of him and one step towards the exit.
Review of Qui a tué Bambi?
