Olivier Gourmet Movies

A career politician walks a tightrope between ethics and ambition in this drama from filmmaker Pierre Schoeller. Bertrand Saint-Jean (Oliver Gourmet) is the French Minister of Transportation, a man who entered his career in public service as an idealist intending to use his position to help others and serve the people with honor. Years later, Saint-Jean has come to view politics as a matter of image and gamesmanship, and while he strives to rise above the more corrupt aspects of his profession, he's a man who often looks to how an action will benefit himself rather than the people. As Saint-Jean deals with the day-to-day particulars of his job, he's facing a larger issue -- a campaign to privatize France's train stations is afoot, and while Saint-Jean is convinced it's a bad idea that would have a negative impact for nation's rail system, he also believes who is perceived as the "winner" is just as important as what's the right thing to do. As Saint-Jean wrestles with the privatization issue, he's also reminded that he's neglecting his family as he confers with his assistant (Michel Blanc) and his working-class chauffeur (Sylvain Deble). The Minister (aka L'Exercice de l'Etat) received its world premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Directed by Bruno Podalydès (who helmed the "Montmartre" segment of the omnibus Paris, I Love You), Bancs Publics chronicles three intersecting stories in the city of Versailles: an office worker who hangs a banner reading "Lonely Man" beneath his window, the feuding families and couples in a busy town square, and the employees and customers of a local shop. This sprawling and droll exploration of the estrangement of modern life boasts a star-studded supporting cast that features a veritable who's who of French cinema, including Olivier Gourmet, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Chiara Mastroianni, Hippolyte Girardot, Pierre Arditi, and the grande dame herself, Catherine Deneuve. ~ Sandra Bencic, Rovi

An Albanian woman living in Belgium finds her dreams of opening a snack bar with her boyfriend leading to tragedy after she agrees to marry a Russian Mafioso in order to gain citizenship. All Lorna wanted was to start a small business with her loving boyfriend, but in order to make that happen she would first have to gain citizenship. Local mobster Fabio claims that he can make that happen if Lorna agrees to a sham marriage with a man named Claudy. After gaining Belgian citizenship, Lorna discovers that a high-profile Russian Mafioso is also seeking legal entry into Belgium, and soon. He's willing to pay a hearty sum in order to marry Lorna, but in order for that second marriage to be possible Fabio will have to have Claudy killed. Will Lorna be able to remain silent as Fabio's deadly plot unfolds, and what will become of her if Fabio finds out that she has warned Claudy of the impending danger he faces? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Recalling such prior efforts as Maurice Pialat's 1984 Police and Bob Swaim's 1982 La Balance, Gallic director Olivier van Hoofstadt's relentlessly tense and violent action thriller Go Fast plunges into the violent and dangerous world of French metropolitan police. Roschdy Zem stars as Marek, a cop involved in a risky sting operation against a drug trafficking ring. In the process, his best friend and partner dies, which prompts his transfer to an undercover division of the force. He soon learns that his new mission will involve infiltrating a gang involved in smuggling cannabis from southern Spain to small-town France. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

An entire household is caught in traffic thanks to the opening of a new super-highway in this satiric comedy drama from Swiss filmmaker Ursula Meier. Marthe (Isabelle Huppert) and her husband (Olivier Gourmet) live in a small home in rural France with their three children. The family values their peace and quiet, except for oldest daughter Judith (Adélaïde Leroux), who has a fondness for cranking heavy metal music as she relaxes in her lawn chair. While construction on a highway near the house began years ago, the progress has been so slow that Marthe and her family have all but forgotten about it. But once the road is opened, they're suddenly subjected to a nonstop barrage of noise, exhaust, and all the stress that comes with it, and the relative calm of the household decays into chaos as Marthe is driven to a nervous breakdown. Home was screened as part of the Critics' Week program at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This tough and gritty French-language crime drama represents the premier installment in a two-part series of features on the life and doings of notorious Gallic hood Jacques Mesrine (1936-1979). Mesrine is played, in both installments, by actor Vincent Cassel, who reportedly underwent massive weight gain and weight loss to convincingly portray the volatile Mesrine at various periods of his life. Director Jean-François Richet begins in 1979, with Mesrine's uncommonly violent death, whereby he and a beautiful young woman are suddenly (and fatally) ambushed by Parisian police not far from Mesrine's place of birth. Richet then flashes back to the Franco-Algerian War of the late '50s and a brutal interrogation undergone by Mesrine. Following a military discharge, Mesrine returns to his parents' suburb of Clichy, where his dad has arranged a pathetic job for him in a lace-making factory. Never one to take humiliation lying down, Jacques perceives burglary, larceny, and racketeering as much-superior options and decides to pursue a life of crime via a "business partnership" with childhood buddy Paul (Gilles Lellouche), who works for mobster Guido (Gérard Depardieu).

As the years pass, Jacques works his way up through the ranks of the underworld; via Paul, he also meets and falls hard for two women: Pigalle streetwalker Sarah (Florence Thomassin), and Sofia (Elena Anaya), a beautiful Spanish woman with whom he cohabitates after doing time in a French prison. Following a brief and unsuccessful attempt to "go straight," Jacques reconnects with Guido, then finds it necessary to escape from France to Canada with his new mistress, Jeanne (Cécile De France). Unfortunately, another prison sentence is waiting for him there, replete with brutal solitary confinement, but the possibility of a daring escape beckons. The second half of the Mesrine saga, entitled Mesrine: L'Énnemi Public No. 1 for French release, followed immediately after and picks up where this installment wraps. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The bleakest and most claustrophobic nightmare of many a European actualizes in director Régis Wargnier's apocalyptic thriller Pars vite et reviens tard (AKA Have Mercy on Us All). Not long after his abandonment by his girlfriend, French police captain Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is confronted by a string of bizarre signs strewn across Paris - strange talismans and omens that appear inexplicably on Parisian doors, whispered words that forebode an unspeakable onslaught of doom. All suggest someone's crude warning, and a riddle that Adamsberg must solve to stave off a coming tragedy - but the meaning eludes the captain until calamity hits: the Plague returns, wiping out scores of victims in its wake. And more problematically, it appears that some malevolent soul is single-handedly controlling the outbreak, willing it wherever he or she chooses. Lucas Belvaux, Marie Gillain, Michel Serrault and Mathias Mlekuz co-star; Wargnier co-authored the script with Harriet Marin, Lawrence Shore, Julien Rappeneau and Ariane Fert, adapted from the novel by Fred Vargas. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A good-natured adolescent struggles to find himself as his controlling mother attempts to bind him with her love in director Martial Fougeron's emotionally claustrophobic family drama. Julien (Victor Sévaux) is a handsome and smart young man who would make any mother proud. Though he may be fairly bright, nothing Julien does can quite meet up to the expectations and lofty demands of his overbearing mother (Nathalie Baye), who seems to take strange pleasure in humiliating her son and placing him in severely awkward situations. It is because of her that Julien is forced to arrange clandestine meetings with his secret girlfriend while taking piano lessons from his kindly grandmother (Emmanuelle Riva). Though his sympathetic sister, Suzanne (Marie Kremer), and academic father (Olivier Gourmet) are quick to recognize the psychological damage that the bullying mother is inflicting upon her son, both are loathe to intercede lest they too become the target of the quick-to-anger suburban tyrant. His situation growing increasingly dire as his mother's demands take on a particularly dark bent, Julien is soon forced to resort to extreme measures as a means of dealing with the overbearing matriarch. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The lives of two troubled souls unexpectedly intersect in this ambitious drama from French auteur Eugène Green. Sarah (Natacha Régnier) is a gifted operatic vocalist who has been cast in a production of Monteverdi's Lamento Della Ninfa that's being recorded for release on LP. While Sarah's talents are certainly up to the challenges of her role, the conductor overseeing the production (Denis Podalydès) verbally browbeats her and sends her into an emotional tailspin that she can't shake, despite the encouragement of her boyfriend, Manuel (Alexis Loret). Elsewhere, Pascal (Adrien Michaux) is a student working on his master's degree in philosophy. However, two things are distracting him from his work -- an intense fascination with the artist Michelangelo and his poems, and his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, Christine (Camille Carraz). Pascal falls into a severe depression when Christine finally leaves him, and he's contemplating suicide when he hears some music that gives him a new lease on life -- Sarah's recording of Monteverdi. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi