Ad Vitam

2 outta 5

Ad Vitam is a Netflix French Language action thriller that is considerably short on action or thrills, but those do arrive eventually. The most interesting stuff happens at the start and then a very long exposition flashback that drags into awkward police romance, and then some solid action at the end. In a bad way, the flashback structure is used when the story doesn’t have an interesting place to start. This film is like Taken where the aging action hero goes on a revenge trip to save a loved one. It is an okay action movie if one has seen Taken a few times and want to see old French guys with special skills instead, but it takes a hellova long time to get to the good stuff.

Franck (Guillaume Canet) is a police officer married to the very pregnant Leo (Stéphane Caillard). One day, Vanaken (Johan Heldenbergh) comes forward with a gaggle of goons, kidnaps Franck’s pregnant wife, and demands that Franck hand over incriminating evidence. After this plot setup, there is a lengthy flashback of Franck training with an elite police squad, falling in love with Leo, and working with his friends Nico (Alexis Manenti) and Ben (Nassim Lyes). Nico and his wife, Manon (Zita Hanrot), have several kids and advocate for Franck and Leo to breed, although this gets complicated when Nico gets cut down in the line of duty. It turns out that Franck has stumbled onto a giant conspiracy and the bad guys want to silence him by kidnapping his wife and framing him for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he must use the help of his buddy Ben to get back his love and expose the conspiracy. 

As this is a non-English language film, frustratingly, Netflix defaults to the English dub which is just awkward to watch and doesn’t look or sound natural. So, make sure when starting the movie to select the original French language track with subtitles. Annoyingly, there is no option for just dialogue subtitles so one must watch Closed Captioning which is a lot of text saying, “Menacing music rises” and “Laughs wryly”. The most awkward subtitles is a somewhat goofy escape on parachute propeller combo as the closed captioning subtitles say, “Majestic music playing.” And the finale features a high-speed chase with the main character riding on a propeller/parachute chasing after speeding cars. It is inventive but goofy to see a Fan Man as the heroic mode of transportation. But Franck does eventually slam two feet first into the chest of the bad guy at the end which is sweet.

The fairly interminable flashback portion features quite a lot of cop movie cliches that aren’t made any more tolerable even if the characters are speaking French. His buddy, Nico, is basically a cop with a family cliché, even saying that if Franck has a kid then he should use that fear to stay alive and fighting. It is incredibly unsurprising when Nico dies in the line of duty, although there is an emotional bit when he is bleeding out as he gently taps Franck’s hand reassuring him that it’ll be okay. Nico’s wife gets in some fun banter with Franck, but when Nico dies, she is there as a symbol of cop widow grief, as even her son gets to chew out Franck for letting his father die. Ben is the steadfast supporting buddy cliché as someone who backs up Franck in the heat of battle. Even when he is injured in the line of duty, he takes a job as a coach as a good cliché backup buddy should.

The flashback delving into the relationship of Franck and Leo is pretty dull. Leo never wants children, they bond over work, and he is shocked when she hits on him, and when she gets pregnant, she and Franck suddenly realize the power of their relationship and the child to come. Eventually, she is used as kidnap bait to move the plot forward. There are a few scenes where Caillard does show some emotional depth, though, which is surprising. Canet as Franck gets to holler a lot when the bad guys steal his wife, and he has enough ferocity to convey that his punches are intense. Probably the only standout is Heldenbergh as Vanaken commits some some very nasty villainy, kidnapping Franck’s woman, and setting up Franck to be implicated in a murder/suicide. Pretty dark, as far as villains go.

The conspiracy plot really doesn’t make a lot of sense as it’s too convoluted to care. There’s something involving a blood-stained badge that is supposed to be important. Overall, there is only an extended bit of action mayhem at the end. But it is impressive action featuring a race against time to get the bleeding Leo to safety as Franck uses multiple modes of transportation to take down the bad guys. But even though the movie is barely 90 minutes, there isn’t enough solid action to recommend, as all of the cop movie cliches are trotted out all at once for ultimately a French-language Taken retread. Has some decent punches, though!