ThiefHott Too much of everything

Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Kaydan Christian 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.

BOUF It's possible to believe in Stephane, the con man who operates in a smart hotel on the Riviera, but he's not particularly interesting or likable; and why he falls in love with the schoolteacher who is spending her small inheritance is a mystery. And we are supposed to believe that the schoolteacher instantly transforms into a tough business-person, and falls in love with Stephane. I didn't. I neither believed her character, nor liked her dishonest and greedy manner. Stephane's friend the tongue-tied, love-struck racing car champ (Cluzet) was another idea without any basis in character. And everyone talks all the time, while I was longing for them to get out and see a bit of the Riviera and do something. By the halfway mark I was wondering if this might have made a decent film with a better script some charismatic actors, and a director with some visual flair, but it was merely an idea to revive a sort of "To Catch a Thief" with very little understanding of the dramatic infrastructure or charm, or pace of that film, I realised I was dreaming. The Hitchcock picture isn't that good, but next to this one, it's a masterpiece. "Quatre Etoiles" has a couple of good ideas, but they do not a feature film make.

isabel_towns It's so awful it's not logical; the character of Stéphane is never charming, gentle or other nice adjective, which would make me believe Frassau could fall in love with the guy. He is not even handsome, and he doesn't have the ability of saying the worst things one can imagine and still be cute and charming. He uses her, he slaps at her, and she stays with him like a puppy with his master. I must say that as a girl I was offended, to fall in love with a guy like that one has to be or mad or desperate, and very in both cases. The scenario is not beautiful; there is not even formal beauty in the takes, or something that would make the film worthy. Sorry to say this, but at least is true for me, if I could grade it with a 0 I would

writers_reign Even though the chances of her equalling let alone eclipsing her fantastic performance in Se Souvenirs des belles choses are remote to non-existent I will always seen anything Isabelle Carre appears in because she is not only a fine actress but also gorgeous in a quiet, under-stated manner. Mostly she's chosen or been lucky enough to appear in quality product but there's always a first time and this, I guess, is it. We have not one but two dodgy premises here; first that someone as gorgeous as Carre would choose to shack up with Michel Vuilleroz; Vuilleroz is, read my lips, a great actor, he is, after all, a member of Le Comedy Francaise and they don't do chopped liver but even his mother would not presume to cast him as love interest and Carre DOES find him boring but the point is she would NEVER have found him partner material in a million years. Second dodgy premise; having inherited 50,000 euros out of the blue Fransouss (Carre) decides to spend it all in one fell swoop, accordingly she buys a classy car and checks into the Carlton at Cannes where she encounters a guy, Stephane Garcia (Garcia) who makes Vuilleroz look like Tom Cruise and is mean with it so naturally she falls for him like Richmond fell for Grant. Not only is Stephane a small time con man - he is 'promoting' Elton John who, he claims, will check into the Carlton any day now and until he does Stephane is living on the cuff - but also beats up Fransouss and leaves her stranded in the country. Despite this .... well, some girls NEVER learn. It wouldn't be so bad if Garcia had any personality or charisma - I STILL don't know what Sandrine Kiberlain was doing with him in Apres Vous when she could have had Daniel Auteuil - let alone looks and when the leading man is a no-no it only makes everything else that much worse. On the credit side we have Isabelle to look at and though it should be it's not quite enough.

moimoichan6 There is something wrong with today's french cinema, and it perhaps comes from what's been it's most fascinating side since the "nouvelle vague" : it's attraction, mixed with repulsion for American movies. Since the 60's, the french directors have always been fascinating by American cinema. But most of them use the American cinema's codes to transpose them in a french environment : from Truffaut' "Tirez Sur Le Pianiste" - which plays with the stereotypes of the Film noir in a french universe - to Gans' "Pacte Des loups" - which transposes the western codes in the pre-revolutionary France.And it seems that, with "Quatre étoiles", Christian Vincent tries to archive this form of transformation of American's codes with the french touch. Indeed, the director quotes himself American's comedies from the 40's and says they're direct influence to make this film. "Quatre étoiles" tries to transfers the atmosphere of American's classical comedies from Los Angeles to Cannes. But unfortunately, it doesn't work. Why ? Like in a Cukor' or Lubitch' comedy, the character - a young an inconstant woman - inherit, out of nowhere, 50000 euros and decides to spend it all in a week in Cannes, where, in search of adventures, she falls in love with a small time crook, played by José Garcia. And if a lot of situations are similar to 40's and 50's American films, it never reaches their level of grace and humor. It's true that we have, like in American movies, a young and in-experimented girl who knows exactly what she wants, and who decides to change her life and social position in a day, and that we also have an impossible love story between two characters who hate each other, and are still stuck together, but everything seems so small compared to its models.When, in a American movie, the character would have inherit millions of dollars, the character here has only a few euros left, which can't provokes great and hilarious contrasted situations. The movie always avoid absurd situations and epic quiproquos, like it is afraid of its comical potential : everything stays calm and little, like the characters, who are just a reduction of American stereotypes : like the talkative-but-not-so-bad-crook. And when you reduce stereotypes, nothing much stays.What stays after this very little movie is a small impression of boring, just tempered by the presence of the great Francois Cluzet, who plays a very funny half-brained ex-formula 1 driver, who falls in love with the wrong girl.