by Jason Adams
There's a real effortfully cool 70s vibe to Fleuve Noir (aka Black Tide), the new crime thriller by Erick Zonca (his first movie since 2008's terrific Julia starring Tilda Swinton) - if you think Vincent Cassel might at some point sit in a seedy apartment and play some saxophone like he's Gene Hackman in The Conversation you wouldn't be straining nearly as hard as the movie is to make you think of that. Cassel, looking like a cigarette that gained sentience and put on an overcoat, plays Commandant Visconti, a detective (but don't call him a detective please!) on the case of a missing teenage boy...
Almost immediately Visconti's suspicions turn to the boy's neighbor and tutor Mr. Bellaile (Romain Duris), who can't stop skulking about. Mr Bellaile keeps offering tidbits of bizarre advice, and is generally the least self-aware and most suspect person on Earth. Needless to say it makes some sense that Visconti might think Bellaile guilty of something as he wanders the nearby woods at night, creeping and sniffing about. Both men practically have bits of the teenager hanging from their beards like Tweety Bird feathers they're so elaborately suspicious.
Is Fleuve Noir silly? Sure. Visconti's behavior, soaked in gin and those deep regrets that Movie Assholes always give voice to but can't seem to actually do anything about, is utterly ridiculous. He'd get him fired in the real world in the time it takes for a heart to beat. The movie, somewhat self-awarely, teases at those moments, but it is also enraptured with them and the ghosts of silly thrillers past that they represent... and maybe it's right to be? I had fun watching these two actors try to out-do each other anyway - they don't quite chew up the scenery but they do spit a little of it back and forth into each other's mouths like a party game, and I'm, personally, pretty game to that kind of party.