I wanted to but couldn't!

Crappy film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I was rather disappointed with this movie that seemed to have much to offer and I will not subscribe to the 7 average rating it carries here. As some one said before at first it seems to promise much and then it really becomes chaotic and unbelievable, I would add, at time a little boring predictable and definitely too long. As a male gender I did not really got offended or embarrassed by the depiction and generalisation of our gender but thought it was rather unnecessary. And for those who applause the tragic topic of forced prostitution treatment it gives, personally I would have prefer a more serious approach to it as I found, at time, it tended to trivialise it. Yes I did laugh and or became a little curious, but it amazes me how some reviewers turn it into something very special. Ordinary I'm a little biased toward French films "having been French" for more than a quarter of a century, then left France for some 45 years and somehow miss it a little like an old girlfriend! But even this did not help me to see more in this film. I was looking forward to see V Lindon, and C Frot I did admire in other works but here was not really impressed. It was a pleasure to see Line Renaud that I knew and loved only as a singer of my early years. Rachida Brakini does a reasonable job. But somehow the whole is not as good for me as some of part of it.

'Chaos' is a very surprising movie from many points of view. Director Coline Serreau drives a quite complex story, changes pace and uses different techniques all along the film, and so succeeds to keep the interest at pick for the whole duration of the movie.It starts like a bourgeois drama - a couple in Paris refuses to help a young girl attacked by a gang of criminals. He is a total jerk, as are the majority of the male characters in the movie, but the wife followed by remorse searches for the young girl in the hospital and basically saves her life and supports her in the recovery process. The psychological drama in the first part of the film turns into a sordid gang story later with almost Terentinesque touches when we learn that the young prostitute is followed by her employers who are ready to bring her back at any price and not only for her services.Well filmed and acted, with a remarkable performance from Rachida Brakni in the principal role the film succeeds to be convincing despite its very sharp and maybe too explicit social stands. The main character is a victim of sexual exploitation by men, as well as of oppression as a young woman in her family of Algerian origin and the authors make no secret where the guilt lies. The cinema qualities of the film avoid turning it into a manifest on screen and by providing an enjoyable and interesting film experience the message makes it better to the viewers.

"Chaos" is a subtitled French flick about a middle aged couple who make no effort to help a street hooker who is being beaten by three men. As this dramedy unfolds, the wife finds the hooker in the hospital, helps nurse her back to health, and thus begins a long relationship which carriers them into a variety of situations including revenge wreaked upon a pimp, some payback for to the bad Samaritan husband, the rescue of an Algerian girl who is about to be sold into marriage, etc. The film is a technically good effort. However, the comedic and dramatic components don't work together but rather work against each other diluting their efficacy and rendering the film a matter of curiosity rather than a vehicle for entertainment. Pass on this one unless you have a taste for clumsy feminist subtitled black comedy. (B-)

"Chaos" has been described by some reviewers as a French "Thelma and Louise." Not so. "Chaos" is that rare film seamlessly and believably meshing extreme violence and brutality with wry comedy. Its two female protagonists are winners in the great Game of Life (Thelma and Louise lost out on that score, big time).Helene (Catherine Frot) has a successful career and is married to a business-obsessed, vacuous, philandering fool, Paul (Vincent Landon). Their twenty year or so marriage has produced ample material comforts and a son, Fabrice (Aurelian Wiile), who's living proof that a kid can turn out to have less sensitivity and intelligence than your average Parisian poodle. If my son turned out like Fabrice...well, I can't even contemplate the possibility.On an evening out, Paul and Helene encounter a young woman desperately fleeing from three rabid pursuers. Paul locks the car doors leaving the hapless victim to endure a horrific beating, shown in all its gory. Paul's prime concern is to get his vehicle into a car wash (a pretty spiffy one at that) so the spattered blood on his windshield won't be noticed by police). A great citizen is he.Deeply disturbed by Paul's detached callousness, Helene seeks out the woman who is near death in an intensive care unit. Noemie (Rachida Brakni) is a prostitute who tried to run away from the gang of thugs who pimped her first on the street and then to high-income but low-class businessmen. Brakni's portrayal as a determined woman fighting death and the threat of lifelong disability is intense, involving and believable. She isn't The Happy Hooker - she's the surviving woman, her strength coming from a deep interior that even drug addiction can not erase.Helene plays an increasingly important role in helping Noemie to recover from her grievous wounds. It's neither a spoiler nor a surprise that they form a bond of trust and friendship and embark on a mission of ...what? Justice? Vengeance? Reparations? Director Coline Serreau unfolds the story in a well-filmed series of scenes that never lose the viewer's attention (at least I couldn't take my eyes off the screen).Paul and Fabrice could be seen as stereotypes of fatuous, self-indulgent, essentially helpless-without-women men except that they are soooo real. Helene is no victim - she understands her menfolk's foibles and her decisions are her own, not the product of male manipulation and dominance. Ms. Frot plays her role beautifully with slight facial expressions telling much.Yes, this is a film where most of the women (including Paul's neglected mom) are the Good Gals and the male characters start at jerks and work their way down the food chain to abusers and rapists. But the interplay between the domestic and romantic comedy and the abyss of forced prostitution and exploitation comes across as simply different sides of women's life experience. In that regard "Chaos" is quietly compelling.Noemi is from an Algerian family and the film swats at Islamic customs that demean women and control their destinies. I don't expect this movie to be a hit in Islamic countries. "Chaos" pulls few punches in depicting the reality of the bleak futures in store for girls raised in the ultra-materialistic and wholly bigoted families exemplified by Noemi's family. 8/10.