Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

dromasca The first few seconds of 'Feux Rouges' show Antoine - a mid-age Parisian insurance agent - writing a loving mail to his wife on the verge of a family vacation. The last few seconds of the movie show the couple exchanging loving smiles while driving to the South where they would pick the children from a camp to continue together the vacation. Everything goes wrong in the in-between.'Feux Rouges' starts as a relationship drama and turns into a thriller and a wrong-turn movie. It is inspired by a novel of the Georges Simenon, and as many of Simenon's novels the characters are far from being great communicators. The lack of communication, the routine and maybe the differences in social positions make of Antoine an unhappy husband who is ready to spoil the start of the vacations by heavy drinking while on road. Much of the movie happens on the road, and the gradual tension building picking with the disappearance of the wife Helen strikes a cord of uneasiness and even claustrophobia - great achievement for a film filmed on highways and roads with the sky almost permanently on view. As in many of Simenon's novels there is a moralistic twist, and justice is made even if it is completely the result of hazard and not of the will of men. And there is a huge price to pay for this justice, which we only can guess as it happens out of the screen and story time.Director Cedric Kahn has learned a few lessons in thrillers from the great masters, and fist of all from Hitchcock. Antoine is wonderfully played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin as the type of character that we know from the very first moment that he will get into trouble and he indeed does all to confirm this, but it is the character of Helene played by Carole Bouquet that he relates to all the time and who is his focal point of frustration, worry and love.The simplicity of the story telling, the careful gradation of tension towards horror, the low key ending which does not solve the conflict, but just postpones it beyond the duration of the screening make of this film a worth watching piece of cinema.

lastliberal 2004 was a good year for foreign films with Feux rouges and Mar adentro and Pedro Almodóvar's La Mala educación. Feux rouges is a great thriller in the style of Hitchcock.Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) and Hélène (Carole Bouquet) play husband an wife who bicker with each other on a road trip to pick up their children from Summer camp. I bet that many, if not most, husbands may see a lot of themselves in Antoine; and many wives will see themselves in Hélène. It makes you really think about marriage.They split up, with one taking the train, and both come in contact with an escaped convict (Vincent Deniard, in his first film). What happens is the second best part of this film and what makes it a Hitchcock thriller.Not to be missed.

tbaerman The actors did a good job, but the plot had too many inconsistencies to work as a thriller. Many reviewers cite the main character's need to stand up to his wife as a reason for his sudden drinking problem. He was a father with two pre-teen children, and he was going to be driving all night to pick them up from camp. The drinking doesn't make sense.The next huge inconsistency was the main character and his killer companion breezing through a roadblock specifically set up to catch the escaped killer. Then, the fact that the killer always keeps his right hand in his pocket is never explained, other than the main character's shouted question about the killer's arm being crippled. There needed to be some kind of payoff or explanation about that. Finally, after the main character's wife was raped and her head smashed because of his drunken stupidity, she welcomes him back joyfully. The story definitely didn't work. I'm amazed that I can't find one professional review that hints at that.

Philby-3 CAUTION - SpoilerThe French seem to have a very different idea from Hollywood about what constitutes a thriller. Hollywood likes to pitch a regular sort of guy into a baffling situation over which he has no control – Denzil Washington up against shadowy State operatives, or Harrison Ford against various bad guys, for example. The pace is fast and there is tension followed by a let-up at frequent intervals. We, the audience, identify with the protagonist and cheer for him or her to succeed. In this film there is a central character called Antoine who is stupid beyond belief – Homer Simpson is a philosopher by comparison – and who gets himself into a nasty but routine situation he could have easily avoided (if giving a lift to an escaped psychopath is routine). Then he blunders his way out of it. We sigh with relief at the end as he avoids a fate he richly deserves. Funnily enough he is almost sympathetic, for his one concern is the safety of his family – he might be thick but like Homer his heart's in the right place.There's plenty of tension though, built up in a different way. The camera spends a lot of time on close-ups, especially on Jean-Pierre Darroussin (of Marseilles movies fame), who plays Antoine. An air of menace is generated by car radio bulletins, heavy night-time road traffic, seamy roadside dives and Antoine's increasing intake of alcohol, which reaches almost incredible proportions. Most of the time is spent on busy French roads at and we spend a lot of time waiting for the inevitable crash.Jean-Pierre Darroussin turns in a remarkable performance. He is a sort of French everyman, an insurance company clerk married to a much more high-powered woman who is a corporate lawyer (Carole Bouquet – gorgeous as always). You wonder how they ever got together. Yet Darrousin somehow convinces us that the fate of this little man matters to her as well as to us.The original property, apparently was a story by the prolific French writer Georges Simenon of 'Maigret' fame, and the interrogation of Antoine by an extraordinarily well-briefed police officer is straight out of a Maigret episode. I would think the story has been updated a bit (career woman attorneys were pretty unusual in Maigret's day). I can't really think that the police would assume so readily that Antoine was not guilty of any crime – police officers are known more for their pedantry than imagination- but at least it helps the plot towards resolution.You won't like this movie if you don't like French films, but it is a vivid and absorbing entertainment, albeit about someone we pity rather than admire. It has not encouraged me to any do more driving in France, even in an apparently indestructible Rover.