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20 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
The Red & The Black, 7 September 2004
Author: Ali_Catterall from London, England

Red Lights is like a bad dream you might have if you nodded off over the wheel during a long car journey, with the roar of the motorway and the crunch of tyres on gravel seeping into your subconscious. It's so ambient, it would work just as well as a radio play. En route to collecting their kids from summer camp, 'married alive' couple Antoine (Pierre-Darroussin) and Helene (Bouquet) bicker in the car, as Antoine accuses her of cramping his style. The only way this sad little man can assert himself is to pull over and slug whisky after whisky in every roadside bar. When his furious wife bails out to catch the train instead, it's the start of one of those Long Dark Nights of the Soul for both parties. 'I got sick of playing the good little doggie', Antoine tells his mysterious hitchhiker, in one of the movie's most memorable exchanges. 'You're like my doggie,' sneers his passenger. 'Always thirsty.' 'Where's your dog?' 'He's dead…' Based on the Georges Simenon novel, here's a dark little number, blackly comic, and as searing as the red neon lights that accompany each pit stop on the road to Hell.

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19 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Two thirds of a good thriller, 14 September 2004
Author: Larry-115 from New York, NY

Red Lights does not disappoint for artful cinematic tension, mining the rich resources of the French thriller -- no one can craft a thriller like the French. As the story unfolds, the viewer is driven increasingly into unease by the movie's primary conceit: the sudden unraveling of the milquetoast male lead before and then during a road trip into the country (in the throng of traffic during French vacation season) to pick up the couple's kids from camp. This ultimately has disastrous consequences for both husband and wife, despite their separating early in the story.

There are very effective touches here, unique to the French thriller. I especially liked Kahn's fearless willingness to run a protagonist straight into the ground so we can watch him grossly err and see him swerve into disaster, a risk most American directors wouldn't have the guts to take. He infuriates us and we are in total fear for him all at the same time. I also liked the way that Kahn can imbue simple sequences, like a series of phone calls, with utter tension.

What I did not like was the encroachment of pat, storytelling elements. The resolution is purely canned, and in particular there is one coincidence in the movie that is so Hollywood -- so Jerry Bruckheimer -- that it made me wince in embarrassment. It almost seems that, at the end, another director altogether stepped in to take the helm.

Red Lights is definitely worth seeing, but Kahn should have stayed the course with his somber, bold storytelling, rather than chickening out as he did. A good movie that could have easily been better.

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22 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
One for the road!, 18 September 2004

Author: jotix100 from New York

This film, in my humble opinion, has been misunderstood by the public, judging by the comments I've heard about it.

First of all, the director Cedric Kahn is one of France's most interesting figures to come out in the last years. He knows what he is doing, and what's more, he's being naughty in the way he presents his story that makes us see it one way, but is it what we are seeing real? The adaptation by M. Kahn and Laurence Ferreira Barbosa takes the Georges Simenon story from America to France.

The most interesting thing about Antoine is that he is an ordinary man. He is married to a Helene, who is a more successful person; Helene is a lawyer who must make a lot of money, much more than Antoine. As a couple, we can't see them together at all. Antoine is a man who is not handsome. Helene, on the other hand is a beautiful woman, and we wonder what brought them together in the first place? We witness Antoine going to the bathroom where he ogles his own wife in the shower. It appears their sexual life has ended long before we meet them.

Antoine has a drinking problem. On the trip to pick up their children they encounter heavy traffic. As they take a detour from the main highway, their troubles start. We see the passing "red lights" of the different bars beckoning Antoine to stop and have another beer, or a beer with a chaser. To make things worse, they hear on the radio about the escapee from the Le Mans prison, near to where they are traveling. We see the roadblocks and the erratic way in which Antoine begins to drive.

After one pit stop, Helene disappears. She has decided to take the train and leaves him a note. Antoine goes to the station, but he is late. Thus begins what will be a long night adventure along rural, nocturnal France.

Without giving away what happens, we watch Antoine waking up. Antoine's car is in a ditch and he must fix the tire if he wants to go to get the children. This awakening seems to me, the turning point of the story. Are we sure what we saw after Helene's disappearance and what happened in the road to Antoine with a stranger really occur? Mr. Kahn is playing with us. There are a lot of clues, but as detectives, the director is asking us to stay attentive to what is really going on, or isn't.

The film belongs to Jean Pierre Darrousin. He is an actor whose own appearance makes us not care for the man we see on the screen. On the other hand, M. Darrousin knows who this Antoine is and what makes him tick. His performance is subtle, yet he carries the film in a way no one would expect from a not well known star.

Carole Bouquet is a bourgeois woman who seems to be living in the wrong marriage. In contrast with her husband, she is in control of her life; she appears, at least on the surface, not to care about Antoine, but she has stayed married for a while. We know that Helene cares for Antoine at the end of the film when the two meet at the hospital.

This film shows Cedric Kahn as a director to be reckoned with.

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16 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
If you love diving into a character via roadhouse blues in France, you'll really like this movie, if not love it, 6 October 2004

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

The first thing to take note in Red Lights is that the story is not rushed: Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) is perhaps a passive-aggressive, or maybe just having a mid-life crisis. He and his wife Helene are planning for a trip to pick up the kids from summer camp. But the drive hits some things in the way- he has a beer and a whiskey before leaving; a traffic jam gets to Antoine; he drinks again at a roadside; he and his wife bicker; he drinks again; she leaves, and once he realizes he can't catch up with her, he decides to have a night with a little more drinking ahead. While he says he doesn't drink too often ("two, three times a year", he says), this night is different. Especially with a fugitive somewhere out on the loose, as the radio says.

Cedric Kahn is a skilled and trust-worthy director (via France) for a few reasons in dealing with his latest film Red Lights. He doesn't make the pace in the tenser scenes (with a couple of juicy exceptions) really quick cut like in a choppy Hollywood piece. He brings an interesting blend of visuals with the city and the roads, the cars, then as it grows darker outside, the lights outside become key. When Antoine awakes the next morning on the roadside, he's out in the country. As well, he has a great blend of music from Debusy, whom I may have heard before this film but never recognized. It's a fascinating element to add with the impending doom of the film's story. But the key thing that the director can do for a film is the right casting, and here's it's impeccable in dealing with the three leads. Jean-Pierre Darrousin is terrific at conveying the mind-set of this husband in a rocky relationship. Then in the second and third acts, despite what he's doing on the road, he keeps consistent in keeping as the film's reluctant hero. Credit should also be given to first-time actor Vincent Deniard, who is perfect at being the "quiet one you got to watch". And Carole Bouquet is a fair counterpart to a Darrosin.

Although the denouement starts to drag, for my money the film's main chunk doesn't. It would be one thing if Antoine just got drunk. But there's also a good interest in the talking points with the character, as he decides to blow his mind in the process. Red Lights is definitely an art-house film that won't please everyone (the film ends rather realistically, without the kind of extra bit American audiences might want that's more intimate here), but it's still very compelling.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Into the night, 5 June 2005

Author: jono-73 from United Kingdom

"Red Lights" is an unsettling depiction of a middle-aged man's unconscious quest to find a deeper sense of selfhood via descent into a nocturnal underworld. The man in question, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), is a Parisian insurance agent who has reached crisis point in his relationship both with himself and his high-achieving lawyer wife Helene (Carole Bouquet). A car journey to Bourdeaux to pick up their two young children from summer camp rapidly turns into a nightmare as Antoine recklessly embarks on a drinking binge. Loosened up by alcohol, he proceeds to unleash his pent up frustration onto Helene. Unsurprisingly, Helene is not going to stand for this for long and she opts out of the road journey at an early stage, choosing to take the train instead. Meanwhile, as the marital crisis erupts, radio reports bring news of a dangerous escaped convict at large in the vicinity...

Based on a novel by that prolific 20th Century master of the psychological thriller, Georges Simenon (peerless in the art of representing bourgeois male pathology), Cedric Kahn has fashioned a handsome and compelling movie which credibly portrays the many different shades of its lead character's rage and paranoia while maintaining steady levels of increasing suspense, even beyond the violent crescendo which occurs roughly two thirds of the way through. The mood changes somewhat as the shaken Antoine emerges from his nocturnal adventure into a new dawn, but further uncertainties and revelations keep the viewer gripped until the credits.

Kahn has astutely remarked on the thematic similarities between this film and Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut", a movie which asks not dissimilar questions of its male protagonist and which likewise involves him in a descent into a dangerous night of wish fulfilment. Like Tom Cruise, Darrousin pursues his fantasies, fuelled by rage and a deep sense of disconnection from his spouse, only to be confronted with hitherto dormant aspects of his psyche which threaten to destabilise and undermine everything that he holds dear. Viewers who dislike the Kubrick movie should not, however, be deterred from giving this one a go. Thematic elements apart, it's a very different beast.

Darroussin sustains his basically unlikeable character in bravura manner through a succession of alcohol-induced mental states and mood swings, and the viewer ends up thoroughly involved in his plight even though his self-destructive behaviour simultaneously serves to create a distance from the audience. Bouquet meanwhile is as classy and beautiful as ever in what is essentially a supporting role.

Judicious use of music by Claude Debussy heightens the atmosphere, and as photographed by Patrick Blossier, "Feux Rouges" looks great both by night and by day.

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10 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
About Antoine Dunan, 14 February 2005

Author: Mort-31 from Vienna, Austria

After "L'ennui", this was the second Cédric-Kahn-movie I have seen, and I found it great. Kahn proves himself a specialist on ridiculous men lacking self-confidence and absolutely inapt to retain some dignity in a modern world like this.

The thriller plot, as stated by some earlier commentators, may be a little weak, especially as regards the "man on the run" (he is obviously taken directly from the Simenon novel but his character is neither fish nor foul). But this is not what it is all about. The thriller plot is merely an excuse to give a touching and disturbing portrayal of character Antoine (and his marriage).

Let me answer to two of the "plot holes" discovered by two other commentators: Antoine's drinking does make sense; he drinks because of frustration and a minority complex for not feeling man enough in the presence of his successful wife. His drinking is a childish act of defiance, he is not a sensible grown-up, not a man (as he keeps repeating himself). And of course, he doesn't recall all these telephone numbers from his memory; as indicated with one of the first calls, he calls directory inquiries and has himself connected to the respective partner each time (remember, there is cuts between the various calls).

Red Lights is a brilliant character study concealed as a masterpiece of suspense. Darroussin gives a touching performance in his role as hero and anti-hero at the same time. He is not particularly likable but still makes us feel sorry for him.

The ending, which I am not going to reveal here, is stirring in a very subtle way because above all it raises the question how it is all going to go on.

I like stories in which weird things happen out of character logic. This is a particular successful one.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
The less you know the better, 7 May 2005

Author: George Parker from Orange County, CA USA

"Red Lights", a subtitled French film, spends it's 1.75 hour run following Antoine (Darroussin) and his wife Hélène (Bouquet) as they leave Paris for a night drive to Bordeaux to pick up their kids. What should have been an ordinary road trip turns into an extraordinary series of events which will leave the couple forever changed. The less you know about these events prior to viewing the better as any hint of what happens could lead to a case of mistaken genre and spoilage. This film is a human drama which doesn't attempt to entertain with extremes but rather opts to engross with a slowly seductive tale of intrigues kept to realistic proportion. "Red Lights" relies heavily on the ability to identify with the adult married couple and the problems they encounter and, therefor, will play best with mature adult audiences. A nicely managed, methodical and very believable film which spends most of its time with Darroussin, "Red Lights" received good marks from critics and public alike and is well worth a look by mature viewers into French flicks. (B+)

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
A Nervy Thriller: Contemporary French Noir, 5 September 2004

Author: Ralph Michael Stein (riglltesobxs@mailinator.com) from New York, N.Y.

Director Cedric Kahn's "Red Lights" alternates between bright day and scary night. Antoine Dunand (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) is an insurance company employee who may enjoy a decent salary but he feels outclassed, and is out-earned I'm sure, by his corporate attorney spouse, Helene (Carole Bouquet). They have a nice, urban apartment and two young kids, a boy and a girl, both at camp eagerly awaiting pickup by their parents.

Antoine feels neglected by Helene, actually hated, and he even half-suspects her time with fellow male employees goes beyond business. He consoles himself with beer and scotch, preferably one after the other. He's clearly becoming, if he isn't already, an alcoholic.

The two leave to pick up their children from a distant camp. It's holiday-making time in France and the highways are jammed. An impatient Antoine, infuriated by the crawl, takes two successive detours, one off the main highway, the other for several refuelings at on-the-way bars. His driving becomes increasingly erratic, his wife's complaints more provocative. Eventually she realizes he's not just driving poorly, he's getting progressively more smashed. An argument ensues interrupting the classical music on their radio. Her anger at his driving is a coda for their growing estrangement. And then a bulletin announces a dangerous criminal has broken prison and is on the loose.

Recognizing that Antoine is really loaded and he won't yield the car keys, Helene runs off while her husband is knocking down scotch, leaving a note that she'll take a train.

Antoine is excessively upset at finding Helene missing-though befogged by booze, he also probably recognizes his own weirdness. Setting off to intercept her train he accepts a morosely quiet hitchhiker (Vincent Deniard), a fellow who offers no name but guess who he really is (hint above).

The film now enters a dark and isolated countryside where Antoine, despite his towering blood alcohol level, becomes justifiably afraid of his mostly silent young passenger.

The ride becomes a trip to terror for Antoine who sobers up enough to know he better master a deteriorating and life-threatening situation. Having done that he hunts for his wife. To tell more would be to spoil an original, well-acted story about fairly ordinary people who have let their marriage grow stale for all the usually mundane reasons that presage a relationship crisis.

The three main characters make "Red Lights," a title that superficially is about Antoine's reckless disregard of traffic signals but actually spotlights the warnings we receive and often ignore about impending personal crises, work. Largely unknown outside of French cinema, all three well-experienced and effective lead actors keep the viewer glued to the screen.

Compared to the current star vehicle hit, "Collateral," "Red Lights" carries forward true, outstanding noir drama by focusing on the straying from safe paths of ordinary people in common situations.

9/10

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15 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Warmed-over Clouzot, 7 September 2004

Author: Carl_Tait from New York, NY

A decent but ultimately disappointing thriller. It feels like slow-moving imitation Clouzot, with elements from Les Diaboliques ("What really happened?"), The Wages of Fear (high tension on a long drive), and Quai des Orfevres (a similar plot point I don't want to reveal here).

With tighter editing, "Feux rouges" could have been a much stronger movie. It does contain a number of memorable scenes, especially those involving the protagonist and his second passenger. Not a bad film at all, but it doesn't deserve the rave reviews it has drawn from several major critics.

7/10

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The Vanishing Hitcher, 19 November 2005
Author: JoeytheBrit from www.moviemoviesite.com

Whether viewed as an allegorical tale about men's need for the control they feel is threatened by the ascendancy of women (in such areas as law, for example), an arty study of the blurring of fantasy with reality, or simply as a straightforward thriller that focuses on the fragility of what we have and take for granted and how quickly it can be stolen from us, Red Lights is a film that doesn't quite succeed in any of its potential interpretations.

Jean-Pierre Darroussin, normally a supporting actor, is elevated to the status of leading man in the part of Antoine, an insurance clerk with a successful lawyer wife (Carole Bouquet) and a drinking problem apparently exacerbated by his feelings of inadequacy. Their marriage seems to be one that was played out long before we meet them on the day they drive to Bourdeaux to collect their two children from summer camp. There is no intimacy between them, and Antoine seems transfixed by his wife's body as she showers, suggesting their sex life is a thing of the past. Antoine drinks during the road trip strewn with traffic jams and wrong turns, and it is a journey that seems to mirror his inexorable descent into his own personal hell as he drunkenly snipes at his wife to the point where she chooses to continue the journey by train rather than stay with him. It's a decision that has tragic consequences for them both…

There's a deliberate ambiguity in this film about what is taking place on the screen that tends to irritate more than intrigue, and plot holes that can only be explained away by attributing the most audacious interpretation to writer/director Cedric Kahn's intentions. He toys with the viewer's sympathies at times in much the same way that Hitchcock used to but with far less skill or success, and the fact that Antoine is such an unmitigated jerk for much of the film simply makes it difficult for the viewer to relate or empathise with his situation. While we might care about what exactly has happened to his wife Helene – and Kahn does draw out the answers to these questions in a way that is extremely suspenseful – we're not really moved by Antoine's growing concern for her safety, or the peril in which he – perhaps knowingly – places himself. There is a suggestion that the sequence in which he gives a lift to an escaped convict is simply Antoine's drunken fantasy/dream which, while explaining away such discrepancies as why they are waved through a road block and why the police later find no evidence of the stranger's presence in the car, is carried off in such an oblique manner that it comes across as a cheat on the viewer. Sure, it means there is a degree of thought and concentration required on the part of the viewer, which is always a good thing, but when the reward for such effort is as scant as it is here you wonder whether it's worth the effort.

Darroussin and Bouquet both give terrific performances, and Kahn does manage to deliver a couple of quietly effective set-pieces but, for the most part, the storyline is beset with so many problems that it eventually overwhelms much of the good things to be found.

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