Tonino Benacquista Movies

Robert DeNiro stars as an ex-mafia head who cause trouble when his family is relocated to France in this action comedy from writer/producer Luc Besson. Michelle Pfeiffer co-stars in this Relativity Media/EuropaCorp adaptation of Tonino Benacquista's novel. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

A man finds his heart and soul torn between loyalty to his family and a need to be redeemed from his violent lifestyle in this powerful drama from France. Tom (Romain Duris) is a man in his early thirties who finds himself caught between two very different worlds. Tom loves music, and longs to have a career as a concert pianist; he also has talent, and is taking advanced music lessons from Miao-Lin (Linh Dan Pham). But Tom supports himself working as a collection agent for his father, Robert (Niels Arestrup), a mid-level gangster and loan shark, as well as helping Sami (Gilles Cohen) and Fabrice (Jonathan Zaccai), two of Robert's cronies who put together crooked real-estate deals. Tom's hair-trigger temper makes it easy for him to adapt to the violent life of a gangster's muscle man, but he wants to give his creative side a chance to grow, and struggles to get his skills in order for an audition with a concert promoter interested in his music. Tom is also walking on a wire with his employers by having an affair with Aline (Aure Atika), Fabrice's wife, and is forced to mediate a bitter feud between his father and a Russian gangster, Minskov (Anton Yakovlev). A remake of James Toback's acclaimed directorial debut, Fingers, The Beat That My Heart Skipped (aka De Battre Mon Coeur S'Est Arrêté) was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

French filmmaker Thierry Binisti directs the mystery drama The Over-Eater, based on the graphic novel by Jacques Ferrandez and Tonino Benacquista. Soccer player Eric Cantona stars as Richard Selena, a lonely 350-pound police investigator in Marseilles. His doctors tell him that he has a year to live unless he loses weight, but he continues to eat and struggles to breathe. He and his partner Marc Brisset (Jocelyn Quivrin) are assigned to investigate the death of a powerful industry leader. Richard suspects the guilty party is the victim's niece Elsa (Rachida Brakni), a beautiful young artist who runs a cafe with her father Emile Lachaume (Richard Bohringer). Instead of turning her in, Richard makes her come to his house and watch him eat. Meanwhile, Marc believes someone else is responsible for the murder after receiving a tip from the victim's widow, Anne Lachaume (Caroline Silhol). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

A woman looking for love finds a man who leads her into a life of crime in this thriller. Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a woman in her mid-twenties who works as a secretary in a real estate office. More cute than pretty, Carla is shy by nature, and the fact that she has a hearing problem has made her all the more withdrawn. While she longs for a relationship with a man, she finds herself living vicariously through her friend Annie (Olivia Bonamy), a single parent who dates often while Carla babysits her child. Carla makes the acquaintance of Paul (Vincent Cassel), a rough-hewn small-time criminal who has just been released from prison on parole. While Carla ought to know better, she finds herself strongly attracted to Paul, and Paul responds in kind. But before long, it becomes obvious that Paul is having an influence on Carla's normally stable nature; eager to get even with a co-worker who had wronged her, Carla persuades Paul to steal one of her company's files, which makes things more than a bit difficult for Carla's rival. Carla and Paul's actions go from malicious to seriously criminal when Paul hatches a scheme to rob a nightclub owner to whom he owes money -- a scheme that involves Carla's keen skill as a lip reader. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi