I was looking forward to this bilingual European movie. However it turned out to be quite preposterous. The music was very good, cinematography reasonably good, interesting locations. But it became hard to believe in the characters, especially the leading man. On the one hand he is a thief, he drinks incessantly, using drugs frequently and yet he is set up to portray a doctor involved in international humanitarian work and has to pull that off against masterful forces in espionage. Not only does he tackle characters written as heavyweights in the spy business, but he clearly defies those who are giving him a break and then unbelievably gets caught up in tearful grieving for one of the characters whom he is disobeying. The script seems to have been written as the movie proceeded from one scene to another. There is no real connectivity or logic to the protagonists actions whether in his role as the humanitarian or as the hapless degenerate druggie who got caught out. The premise of using such a loser for an important international espionage event boggles the mind. The principal women of the film while reasonable good actors and very attractive really are unable to pull off two of the films turning point events, solely because of the impracticality and unbelievability of their tasks - again, it looks like a script written on the fly. Finally, what is it about films that have the central stars locate each other in one of the world's busiest airports? Most of us have trouble finding a washroom.

I do think that Guillaume Canet is one of our best French actors (and he may become one of our best directors).He is fluent in English (the movie is half French half English for most of the action takes place in London).But this is not a movie he will be remembered for. After a promising start,when Canet seemed to be "framed up" and caught in a mysterious cobweb (kudos to Hippolyte Girardot ,who makes the best of a non-existent part and is the only one to generate some thrills ),the movie sinks into "dejà vu" .

As soon as Canet arrives in London town ,all that must happen happens: obviously the usual suspect has a gorgeous wife ,a wife who falls for (well have a guess?) ;the hero just pretends but he is in love too obviously as the last sequences show;there's the obligatory chase scene in the tube;there's the obligatory terrorism subject.A computerized screenplay based on too many American thrillers .Stephen Rea and his unfortunate son bring the melodramatic touch.