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Prey, The/La Proie

5/10

Stars: Albert Dupontel, Alice Taglioni, Sergi Lopez, Stephane Debac, Natacha Regnier, Caterina Murino, Zinedine Soualem, Serge Hazanavicius

Director: Eric Valette

Every frame of this competent French thriller shrieks “Hollywood remake!”.

While that will doubtless come to pass, Valette’s original delivers the goods without breaking any new ground, to be sure, but nonetheless covering familiar enough territory effectively, generating plenty of suspense and action from Luc Bossi and Laurent Turner’s screenplay to satisfy crime thriller lovers.

Professional thief Dupontel is serving time for a bank robbery whose proceeds remain hidden in the outside world. In a couple of months he will be freed and able to collect the cash. But right now only he knows where it is hidden which makes his accomplice Schneider and wife Murino really unhappy. Unfortunately for him, Dupontel confides in his creepy cellmate Debac who has been wrongly accused of molesting a young girl, is freed and then goes after the loot, putting Dupontel’s family in danger. Result? Dupontel breaks out of jail and, pursued by female cop Taglioni, sets out to foil Debac...

While The Prey isn’t likely to win any prizes, it succeeds efficiently enough as a competent genre piece, with Valette punctuating the narrative with plenty of well-staged action and eliciting a strong central performance from Dupontel.

Alan Frank

France 2011. UK Distributor: StudioCanal. Colour.
104 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 12 Jul 2012