Albert Dupontel Movies

A veteran bank robber enters into a tense battle of wills with his elderly mother after moving back home to maintain a low profile in this crime comedy from actor\director Albert Dupontel. In criminal circles, Sidney Thomas operates under the alias le Vilain. But after 20 decades of successful hold-ups, Sidney starts to feel like his luck is running out. Shortly after Sidney moves back in with his mother, Mrs. Thomas discovers exactly how her son has managed to make such a comfortable living, and determines to get her son walking the straight and narrow. Little does Mrs. Thomas realize how devoted Sidney is to his life of crime, and before long tensions in this quaint household have spiked to an all-time high. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Love and life pose dilemmas for a handful of friends in the City of Lights in this romantic drama from French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch. Pierre (Romain Duris) has enjoyed a successful career as a dancer performing in Parisian nightclubs, but when he's diagnosed with a serious heart condition, his doctor warns him that the strain of his work could kill him. Pierre must reinvent his life, and as he ponders his future and his mortality, he turns to his sister, Élise (Juliette Binoche), a social worker and single mother, for help. Élise is facing some life changes of her own; she's tired of being alone, and has developed an infatuation with Jean (Albert Dupontel), a grocer who sells his wares in the city's open-air market. But Jean is recently divorced and is still preoccupied with his former wife, Caroline (Julie Ferrier). Pierre also finds himself falling from afar for a lovely college student named Laetitia (Melanie Laurent), but he has a rival for her affections in Roland (Fabrice Luchini), one of her professors, who is considerably older than her. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The brutal legacy of the Algerian war forms the heart of filmmaker Florent Emilio Siri's stark period drama concerning a young French soldier confronted by the horrors of war. Lieutenant Terrien (Benoît Magimel) has been dispatched to one of the most remote regions of Algeria to replace an officer who was killed in a recent skirmish. But this war is much more complicated than Lieutenant Terrien ever anticipated, and before long he is forced to confront a World War II French Army veteran willing to kill the soldiers with whom he once served in order to secure the independence of his birthplace. When the fellaghas (Algerian national fighters) massacre an entire village in retaliation for a visit from the French, Lieutenant Terrien vows to remain calm and professional despite the unspeakable horrors that greet him with each passing day. On the other side of the coin is battle-hardened Sergeant Dougnac (Albert Dupontel), a soldier who has seen more than his fair share of combat and stands firm in the belief that this brand of brutality can only be confronted with equal measures of barbarity. Later, Lieutenant Terrien meets a young boy who miraculously survived the massacre of his village and is forced to see the conflict through the innocent eyes of a child. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Film noir meets future shock in first-time feature filmmaker Julien Leclercq's ambitious sci fi thriller about a hard-boiled French police lieutenant investigating the mysterious death of an illegal immigrant. Years ago, wanted human trafficker Dimitry Nicolov (Alain Figlarz) murdered Police Lieutenant David Hoffman (Albert Dupontel)'s wife and partner to death as the horrified lawman watched helplessly nearby. In the aftermath of that killing, Nicolov disappeared without a trace. Flash forward to the year 2025, and the only thing that keeps Hoffman going is the thought of seeking revenge against Nicolov. When the body of a young illegal immigrant is discovered with mysterious scars around her eyes and her synapses completely fried, Lieutenant Hoffman's investigation eventually leads him to an ultra-modern plastic surgery clinic run by Professor Brügen (Marthe Keller). Much to Lieutenant Hoffman's surprise, Professor Brügen's clinic isn't simply concerned with issues of the flesh, but the valuable commodity of memory and identity as well. Currently, Professor Brügen has focused the majority of his research on a captive patient named Manon (Mélanie Thierry) - a teenage girl who had been horribly injured in an auto accident. As the investigation intensifies and Lieutenant Hoffman begins to make the connection between medical research and human smuggling, what was once a simple case of a wanted human trafficker gradually evolves into something infinitely more ominous. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In this bizarre surrealist comedy from France, a handful of oddball characters live in world where people heap strange forms of abuse on animals -- dwarves stage bullfights with rhinos, zoos open restaurants where the privileged can dine on the animals on display, and the wealthy lock themselves into their mansion with the angry pit bulls trained to protect them. In the midst of such madness, a stocky animal handler (Gustave Kervern) who can neither hear nor speak falls in with a pair of dissolute zookeepers (Benoit Delepine and Eric Martin) who are hooked on ketamine and shoot one another with tranquilizer darts for fun. The zookeepers involve their new friend in a crazy scheme to kidnap the pet dog of a very wealthy and extremely large woman, Avida (Velvet), but the three men prove to be wildly inept criminals, and once they're found out, Avida forces them to help her in a plan to take her own life. Featuring a cameo appearance from acclaimed filmmaker Claude Lelouch, Avida was written and directed by Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern, who also act in the film; it received its American premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A fresh-faced orphan from the provinces labors away at the last old-fashioned café on Avenue Montaigne as the Paris theater elite prepare for the biggest night of the year in Jet Lag director Danièle Thompson's whirlwind comedy of intersecting lives. Jessica (Cécile De France) may have been orphaned at the tender age of four, but her doting grandmother (Suzanne Flon) did her best to bring the motherless girl up right. A one-time ladies' room attendant at The Ritz, Jessica's grandmother was a woman well known for her extraordinary taste. Upon arriving in Paris to work as a waitress at a modest café nestled between a renowned concert hall, a venerable theater, and a high-profile auction house, Jessica soon finds herself interacting with a curious cross section of the thriving entertainment industry. As rehearsals for the upcoming shows get under way and Jessica is assigned the task of delivering food to the hardworking actors and low-earning stagehands, she soon discovers that even the most famous of people are often forced to make difficult decisions in life.

Jean-François Lefort (Albert Dupontel) is a classical pianist whose devoted wife has him booked at venues across Europe for the next six years. As the free-spirited musician struggles to eschew the formality of his upcoming concert appearance, self-made businessman Jacques Grumberg (Claude Brasseur) takes time out from his May-December romance and his stressful medical treatment in order to auction off a collection that he has been building his entire life and reach out to his estranged intellectual son, Frédéric (Christopher Thompson). Meanwhile, back on the theater front, popular television actress Catherine Versen (Valérie Lemercier) prepares to star in a farcical play, a famous American film director (Sydney Pollack) begins auditioning actors for an upcoming film about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and a cheerful concierge on the verge of retirement (Dani) enjoys her final stint rubbing elbows with the biggest and brightest stars in Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Alex (Albert Dupontel of Irreversible) is depressed. His teenage son has left the nest, and Alex seems to be losing his connection to his wife, Claire (Marianne Denicourt). Resisting Claire's efforts to reinvigorate their social life, he withdraws into himself. She complains to her friends about his apathy. "Lethargy is the easiest way of controlling us," Claire tells her friends. One drunken night, Alex makes a decision that will change his life; while surfing porn sites on the internet, he purchases a sex doll. When the life-sized (and lifelike) woman is delivered to his door, he immediately tries to return it. He's told by the American company that sells the doll that "all purchases are final." At first, he's ashamed, and tries to dispose of his custom-made, molded silicone dream girl. But when he learns that Claire is having an affair, and wants to "take a break," Alex changes his attitude, and has a night of passion with the doll, newly christened Monique. Soon, he finds himself dedicating himself to her. He turns his son's old room into a silky boudoir, purchases expensive lingerie, and starts taking care of his appearance and the condition of his house. As his friends struggle to understand what's happened to Alex, his newfound passion begins to have a surprising effect on their lives, too. Monique marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Valerie Guignabodet. The film was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendezvous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

A disenchanted doctor discovers love is good for what ails him in this light romantic drama. Bruno Sachs (Albert Dupontel) is a physician in a small town in France. The only medical man in the community, Sachs is well-liked by his patients and maintains a facade of dignity and compassion, but deep inside, he's not happy with his work and doesn't much care for most of his patients. Sachs supplements his income by performing abortions at a hospital in a nearby town, and one of his patients there is a young woman named Pauline (Valerie Dreville). Pauline seems taken with Bruno, and he finds her charming and attractive; Pauline very directly tells Bruno that she isn't interested in a traditional courtship, but she would certainly like to consummate their feelings at some point in the future. A few days later, Pauline bumps into Bruno at a bookstore, and before long a relationship would seem to be in progress. Meanwhile, Dr. Sachs still has to tend to the various maladies of the locals, ranging from a heart patient who refuses to have surgery that could save his life to a man whose body is wearing out under the strain of his wife's three-times-a-day appetite for sex. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this earnest French drama about a physical therapy center, Camille (Sameul Jouy) is admitted after an ugly scuba diving accident leaves him unable to breath with a machine. After a long period of physical and emotional change, he slowly develops a romance with former coma victim Solange (Marion Cotillard). ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Jet black and unrelentingly nihilistic with only a touch of sentiment, this comedy tells the story of a mildly retarded 30-year-old who leaves the orphanage where he was raised to learn the truth about his parents. In his mind, they died somewhat romantically, perhaps at the hands of the Mafia or maybe they were kidnapped.... The truth is, Bernie's impoverished parents left him to die in a project dumpster when he was only two weeks old. Eventually, after meeting assorted savory and unsavory characters, Bernie learns the truth and finds his parents. The reunion is horribly unpleasant and during a struggle, someone is raped and loses vital appendages. Later Bernie gets involved with a heroin addict trying to escape her tyrannical, jobless and crippled father. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi