Olivier Marchal Movies

Meet the Celliers: despite their appearances as an ordinary and seemingly unremarkable French family, a host of severe dysfunctions linger just beneath the surface that continue to upset their lives and threaten to tear everyone apart. Patriarch Henry (Patrick Chesnais), an ex-corporate manager, evinces signs of extreme, multi-leveled regression; his wife Mady (Charlotte Rampling), a sexagenarian housewife, spreads wicked gossip about their two girls; daughter Alice (Mathilde Seigner, still rebounding from two abortions, obsessively paints drug-addled Madonnas; and that's only the beginning. The family's future takes an unusual turn when a mysterious stranger, the jaded, loner policeman Jacques (Olivier Marchal) turns up and wields dramatic influence over everyone. This newcomer succeeds in drawing out long buried neuroses and hang-ups and exacerbating virtually every conflict in the household. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A cop on the edge of an emotional collapse is on the trail of a violent madman in this edgy crime thriller from French writer and director Olivier Marchal. Charles Subra (Philippe Nahon) is a habitual criminal who, after serving twenty-five years in prison on a sentence for rape and murder, is up for parole. While Charles insists he's seen the error of his ways and wants to repay society for his crimes, Justine (Olivia Bonamy) isn't buying it -- Charles murdered her mother and father while she watched, and she writes him a long letter explaining in detail why she wants him to stay behind bars. Charles is granted parole anyway, but it soon becomes clear that the clever criminal fooled the prison authorities -- he still has a taste for murder and wants to kill again, starting with Justine. Louis Schneider (Daniel Auteuil) is a police detective who meets with Justine and helps protect her from the madman on the loose, but he's not the best man for the job these days -- shattered by the sudden death of his wife and child and haunted by a serious of brutal murders he's been investigating, Louis's psyche is in tatters and he's only marginally more stable than the criminal he's trying to catch. Director and screenwriter Olivier Marchal was inspired to make MR 73 by his own experiences as a police officer in the early '80s; the title is police slang for the Manurhin 73, a standard handgun for French beat cops in the '70s and '80s. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Secret Agents director Frederic Schoendoerffer teams with screenwriter Yann Brion for this violent crime drama concerning a brutal kingpin imprisoned by authorities, and the conflict that arises among his underlings as greed taking precedence over loyalty. Claude Corti (Philippe Caubere) is a ruthless crime lord whose creative use of power drills and metal rods have earned him both the fear and respect of the Paris underworld. When Corti is eventually captured by the police and sentenced to prison, the streets become divided by those who intend to carry on with business as usual, and those who see the departure as a notable opportunity for advancement. Beatrice Dalle, Benoit Magimel, and Olivier Marchal co-star in an unflinching look at a world where the only thing cheaper than life is loyalty. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

When ex-Thai boxer Angelo gets drawn into the violent world of competitive kickboxing, the blows come fast and furious as he seeks to redeem himself through the restorative power of true love. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Gangsters is the directorial debut of veteran writer and actor Olivier Marchal, who spent ten years as a police detective in France. Frank (Richard Anconina) is captured and interrogated by the police, who want him to reveal the location of a vaulable briefcase. Flashbacks tell the story of the missing briefcase, in which Frank and Little Claude (Jean-Louis Tribes) are present during a violent burglary in a nightclub. Anne Parillaud (from La Femme Nikita) plays the fearless prostitute Nina. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi