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Secrets of State review
:. Director: Philippe Haim
:. Starring: Gérard Lanvin, Vahina Giocante
:. Running Time: 1:40
:. Year: 2008
:. Country: France
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Positioned as a realistic look at the War of Intelligences and aiming at capturing both angles — the French secret services on one side and the terrorists on the other — Secrets of State leaves you with the feeling that becoming a secret agent is easier than you think: from what I see all it takes is a strong character and sleeping with a classmate who is secretly recruiting for the DST (that's the French equivalent of the CIA) and next thing you know you find yourself in a cold and isolated classroom where a severe-looking man in a dark suit tells you: "Welcome to the DST".
From there we follow the paths of two characters, Diane (Vahina Giocante — Lila Says) who will use her sultry body to infiltrate the enemy and Pierre (Nicolas Duvauchelle), a weak-minded junkie who gets recruited in jail by a terrorist to blow himself up in the streets of Paris. If you're familiar with these types of movies, you already know that their paths will cross and the story is used as a pretext to show us the mechanisms of this intricate underground war.
While writer/director Philippe Haïm has a good sense of rhythm and is able to pen a few intense scenes, his film fails mostly because he is unable to find a good compromise between reality and making a blockbuster-like thriller, which is a conflict that takes place between his roles as a screenwriter and as a director. Mr. Haïm, whose credits involve comedies (Like a Fish Out of Water, The Daltons), clearly hasn't found his own stylistic identity as an action director yet, and instead borrows heavily from the likes of Tony Scott and Michael Bay and jumps on the bandwagon of the post-Syriana geopolitic thriller subgenre. The editing is choppy, supported by an edgy electronic soundtrack that makes it looks flashy, thus contradicting his ambitions at giving us a realistic coolness of this world (a documentary-like approach using digital cameras would have been a better choice for this purpose).
When it comes to delivering messages — and Secrets of State is clearly built as a cynical critique of the world it portrays — Mr. Haïm is as heavy-handed as his direction. The main message that he conveys here is that secret agents — or underground soldiers — are nothing more than prostitutes working — willingly or not — for their cause and, to make sure we get his point, he gives us two character who — guess what — are actually prostituting themselves, whether it's in real life or for their intelligence work.
When the movie ends, you're neither moved nor repulsed by this world. Contrary to what the filmmaker's expectations, Secrets of State fades into your memory as another entertaining but disposable thriller. What you are left with isn't another serious Alain Delon wannabe incarnation by Gérard Lanvin (Mesrine) but rather Vahina Giocante's intense performance, which carries this movie from beginning to the end.
Fred Thom
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