This movie would be a lot better if we Americans did not have such thrillers as "Silence of the Lambs," "Seven" and "Saw." I don't say this to be rude or brag, but this movie is not very suspenseful. It does star my favorite French actor, even though he is Moroccan, Jean Reno (Ronin).

"The Crimson Rivers" takes place in France, which is good because it's in French. If you don't understand French, you have to read this movie. This is not a bad movie. It just took a weird tangent at the end which kind of made it boring instead of exciting.

A Paris police officer--kind of--by the name of Pierre Niemans, played by Reno, is sent to a remote part of France where the librarian of a highly selective University in an isolated town is butchered in a very unique way. At the same time, in a town 60 kilometers away, a small town policeman, Max Kerkerian, played by Vincent Cassell (Brotherhood of the Wolf), is investigating the desecration of a ten year old girl's grave. Their investigations are combined when Max's main suspect is found dead by Pierre in the mountains. This leads them on a journey, discovering the breeding of a master race at the French University.

The reason why the movie suffers is it starts out as a thriller. A sadistic serial killer hacking up bodies in a ritualistic way, while an apparent grave robber is trying to prevent some supernatural being from killing innocent people. However, it goes from this to some kind of ritual Nazi thing. From really good to "What?" Maybe it's a European thing, and justifiable, that anything dealing with Nazis is bad. I don't see why the story had to go in this direction.

The whole reason why I rented this was to watch Jean Reno. He didn't let me down. He continues to be one of my favorite action heroes, which I don't get to see enough. The rest of the actors are neither here nor there and are all there. However, I do like Vincent Cassell. It's nice to see him as a good guy instead of the bad guy like in "Brotherhood of the Wolf."

There are better movies out there than this. It's not bad, but it could have been better if it had ignored the whole Nazi thing and gone a different angle. If you have a hankering for a French thriller movie, than by all means, but if you want a good thriller movie, then find something else.

Brian - the Naked Gun