fludd.org - Movie Review

I’m normally used to see French actor Jean Reno playing serious characters in serious movies. However, the movie Wasabi can certainly be considered as a change for Jean Reno who, for once, lets some rooms in his acting skills for humour. To be honest with you, when I say that Wasabi is not a serious movie, I really mean it. In fact, this very Americanized French movie must be considered as an entertainment that is nonetheless average if you take in consideration the movie’s simple storyline.

As opposed to what we might believe while watching this movie starring Jean Reno, one of the most international French actor that the French movie industry has produced, Wasabi’s simple storyline is hopefully not as thin as it looks. Even though the characters are inserted in an action comedy, the storyline that dictates their motivation and behaviour doesn’t necessarily use the script to pile up all kind of ridiculous situations that are meant to make us laugh. After all, there are certainly some flaws in Wasabi’s storyline, but the comedic moments are quite well exploited in the movie. In other words, don’t expect to see any exaggeration in terms of jokes.

Secondly, let it be said that Wasabi doesn’t have any noticeable problem with the pace. Obviously, if you do adore in your own rights average American-style action comedy, you’ll definitely appreciate watching Wasabi. In fact, while the movie is running, you won’t be tempted to cast a few glances at your watch. Even though the script could have been reviewed before shooting the movie, no scene is useless. Each one of these scenes interacts very well with each other in order to assure a very peaceful transitions from frame to frame. As a result of the rather quick pace, Wasabi is a movie that gets to its point very quickly, but some people won’t like the fact that the movie uses some cheap tricks to get to its predictable, but nonetheless riveting, final scene.

What I’m trying to say is that the French movie Wasabi, despite being very hilarious and amusing to the core mostly thanks to its jokes coming from fairly good dialogs, we often have the feeling that the movie itself often suffers because of the clichés that we’ve seen so many times in American action movie. For example, I’m sure that you seen all kind of situations in which an action movie hero quickly discovers that, while he’s in a public place, he’s being surrounded by bad guys, just because… they wear black suits and shades. Seriously, the villains look much clumsier than secret agents and I’m sure that some members of criminal organization would dare to walk in shopping mall with their black suits and shades in real life.

In the previous paragraph, I was talking about the clichés that are inserted into situations that you’ve seen in so many average American action movies. Evidently, the characters don’t bring any originality because of the movie’s heavy reliance on clichés. For example, the character of Jean Reno plays an undisciplined French policeman who has “his methods” and I don’t need to tell you that the methods of Reno’s character will make him be blamed by his boss who keep saying that “in France [there’s] a Civil Code [and that] this is not the Far West.” Anyway, one thing is sure is that the characters are really easy to appreciate, except the villains, naturally.

As Hubert, the tough French policeman who works the way he wants, Jean Reno (Mission: Impossible) really manages to show us that even though he usually play in serious movies, he can still play in comedy. However, you’ll notice that Jean Reno plays just so seriously that he really makes you laugh without necessarily trying to by giving us the odd feeling that he uses a kind of British subtle humour. Michel Muller, as Maurice, plays the small partner who looks like a loser next to Hubert. The humoristic chemistry between Jean Reno and Michel Muller works perfectly well. Both leading actors form a nice solid duo on screen. As Yumi, the young girl that Hubert must protect, Ryoko Hirosue, someone who’s known as a singer in Japan, is really appreciable to watch because of her undeniable charisma even though she speaks French with a heavy accent.

Finally, Wasabi is certainly not a movie that is likely to represent France at an international film festival, but it is certainly a nice piece of entertainment that you should consider watching if you do like good jokes that are combined with amazing action scenes that are mostly at the end. However, the final gunfight scene really looks like an action scene copied from a Hong Kong movie. After all, there’s no reason to complain about that.

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