The Worst Film Ever

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A young man has great difficulty in feeling something. The ordinary joys and satisfactions of life do not gladden him, nor do the ordinary disappointments and sorrows sadden him. In a desperate bid to feel something - anything - he tries to conjure up strong sensations, by any means possible. It's the beginning of a descent into hell : as his quest robs him of his humanity, he needs ever stronger kicks to know, or feel, he's alive, which in turn pushes him towards ever greater crimes and betrayals. Devoid of any kind of insight in his condition, and moved by cruel and shameful drives, he is convinced that he is becoming his true self : a hunter, born to hunt his inferiors.This, in a nutshell, is the subject matter of "La prochaine fois", a movie based on the real-life crimes of one Alain Lamare. Lamare seems to have been insane - later on, psychiatrists would conclude that he suffered from a rare form of schizophrenia. As his mind deteriorated, he went on a vicious crime spree, while working as a "gendarme" on the task force charged with investigating the selfsame spree. As if all of this wasn't confusing enough, he sent taunting letters to the task force and thus, by extension, to himself. He might have been caught earlier if the gendarmerie, in a fine display of corporate touchiness, hadn't concluded that none of its strapping young men could be a criminal. "La prochaine fois" is a well-made and well-acted movie, intelligent and restrained. Apart from a few nature scenes the movie is executed in a drab, drained or chilly colour palette : a fitting metaphor for the desolation of the perpetrator's life. The various sets and locations too, breathe sadness, decay and solitude.So this is a very powerful work. Still, it focuses so exclusively on the life and viewpoint of the protagonist that it threatens to become claustrophobic. Even two or three short scenes about the impact on wider French society would have added extra variety and interest.Although the movie itself restrains from drawing wider political or societal conclusions, I think it should be made into mandatory viewing for experts charged with determining the mental health and fitness of people such as soldiers, policemen and security guards.

A serial killer who at the same time is a law enforcer, helps to investigate his own crimes. That's the subject of this French thriller, based on a true story. The killer seems to be beyond suspicion and knows all the tricks in the book not to get caught. This leads to bizarre episodes: the policeman's face perfectly resembles the police sketch of the presumed killer, but even when he confronts possible witnesses with the sketch, nobody gets alarmed. The film makers not only tell the crime story of how the killer eventually gets caught, but also highlight the Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde-personality of the policeman (or gendarme to be more precise). The killer is a ruthless psychopath, but when he is dressed in his uniform he is a polite, hard working and scrupulous man. So this film is half thriller, half psychological drama. In my opinion, this works well. The director gradually builds up the suspense: more and more elements are found to reveal the identity of the killer, and as a viewer you see the net around him slowly tightening. The film is set in 1978, and the period details are very nicely done. Since there is a lot of driving around, the film makers had to use lots of French cars from that era. This is a nice thriller, in the style of the famous French 'policiers', with an intelligent screenplay and interesting character development.

I always like movies based on true stories. I also like suspense story. This one is interesting as it is a crime story and the suspect is also a law enforcer. This French thriller is based on a true story where a gendarmerie (a type of national security force in France) shot young women at random between in 1978 and 1979. The strange and fascinating thing is he was assigned to investigate his own case. The movie is quite thrilling and haunting. As the story is told from the perspective of this sick man, we follow him around and witness all his strange acts towards himself: he has a habit of self-torture – barb- wired himself, take icy bath and beat himself up. He lives alone though he has a family whom he does not seem to be close to. He has a habit of distancing himself from society and his family. On relationship, he seems to have difficulty with intimacy even though he has an admirer. Obviously he is sick and needs help. The horrible thing is he has a reputable job and seems to function well. He is in the gendarmerie which enables him to use guns and a command of respect from innocent women. Don't his colleagues and admirer notice anything? If so what do they do? If not, why not? It is buzzard and keeps you on the edge of worrying who will be the next victim and how he will be caught. It is more thrilling as we do not know which part is true and which part is pure fiction.Now the story itself is interesting but I wish there would be more description/insights on how and why he became who he was, as well as how he was trapped. The tempo is a bit slow so it feels kind of dragging. But the acting was good and on the whole it is quite engaging to watch, particularly if you are interested in personality development.

NEXT TIME I AIM HEART is the perfect example of what could have been a very good movie: one emphasize at first the narrative pulled by a "true story" then one tells the tale with showing the murders with the at least strange behavior of the killer, a french cop in real life - military side. Exactly thus like a TV documentary which does not possess a point of view, the director tells everything whereas the spectator's guessing facts...What then ? Why this movie would be better that any rag paper as" The New Detective? There is, regrettably, no reason for it because the mechanism of the pathos is played with the regularity of a Swiss clock of one vulgar funny gag of Naked Gun's movie. Not to mention the music which is only re-underlining the drama of the story, in case to we would have understood nothing at all !Nevertheless in spite of these heavy and dumb brass instruments, the performance of Canet is rather good, and does not suffer by any lack of realism, as well as some ones wrote it in the press critics. And then some sequences add curiously to the suspense of the movie climax - for example the scene of pursuit in Peugeot 604. Nevertheless the movie quotes in forest are worth the manual of a perfect boy scout, but on the other hand, are suffering from giant clichés but hold more or less the road, especially if you have already read Baden Powell back in your life: easy to understand, it is all quite black or all quite white exactly like a suburban sky.So, cut off the sound and you'll be feeling in the end watching yourself a giallo more or less made in the 70's, sent only straight to video. And I know what I'm talking about...