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Sweat review
:. Director: Louis-Pascal Couvelaire
:. Starring: Jean-Hugues Anglade, Joaquim de Almeida
:. Running Time: 1:43
:. Year: 2002
:. Country: France
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Bathed by a scorching sun, Sweat, a truck road movie, plunges us into the dryness of the Moroccan desert following the transport of a stolen load of gold.
Noh (Joaquim de Almeida), his partner-in-crime and the gold embark on a long journey onboard a truck driven by Harvey (Jean-Hugues Anglade—Killing Zoe, Betty Blue) and his co-pilot, with the hope of reaching the coast to deliver the shipment on a boat. Soon tensions will rise between the men and they will have to confront both human and natural obstacles.
Shot in natural light and benefiting from a very stylized cinematography, Sweat is an action film à la française, a nervous and visual work where a typical French ironic spirit is combined with an American sense for efficient action. Chases, shootings and accidents follow each other as the gorgeous desert background fills the screen with its rough beauty and emptiness, taking the lead over the characters and dry plot which get stuck somewhere in a dune of cinema memory.
Despite its entertainment value, Sweat was a project doomed from the start, irremediably joining the ranks of B-movies filling the shelves of video stores. The film is indeed based on Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic The Wages of Fear, recycling its very recognizable and singular premise in a Mad-Max style odyssey, where action replaces psychological tension. An unofficial remake flexing its muscle, in the tradition of Hollywood's latest trend, Sweat is a pointless exercise of style with as much legitimacy as the remake of High Noon starring Tom Skerritt has. This is not the first attempt of the genre since 2002 also saw the release of Nid de Guèpes, a French retake on John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (which was itself a variation on the Rio Bravo theme).
Updating the original, drier black and white representation of the desert and the jungle, the cinematography brings color and emphasizes the notion of space, thus officiating as the spare tire of an uninspired film in which the talent of Jean-Hugues Anglade is wasted.
Fred Thom
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