Rabid Dogs (2016)

Charming and brutal

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

RABID DOGS is the French remake of an old Mario Bava thriller from the 1970s. The two films have the same set-up although the execution is very different. This new version is a dark and low budget thriller that focuses on half a dozen characters and puts them through the emotional ringer as the narrative progresses. I have to say that I was a bit let down by this movie. Not that it's intrinsically bad, because it isn't; it's a perfectly serviceable film and one that passes the time quite well. No, the problem is that I've been spoilt by other French thrillers in recent years: the likes of SLEEPLESS NIGHT, MEA CULPA, and THE PREY have all been exemplary, fast-paced thrillers that burned brightly with intensity. RABID DOGS feels weak by comparison.There are some lively action scenes here for sure, and quite a few good twists. However, in between the strong stuff are some other scenes that feel dragged out and more than a little repetitive. It doesn't help that the characters are rather clichéd despite the efforts of a strong cast looking to bring them to life. The whole film needed to kick up a gear, to be more intense, more dramatic, more edge-of-the-seat, and then it could have been something really special. Instead the viewer is treated to Lambert Wilson (THE MATRIX RELOADED), Virginie Ledoyen, Francois Arnaud (THE BORGIAS) and Guillaume Gouix (THE RETURNED) trying their best but in the end making something rather ordinary.

Three bank robbers and their two hostages, a comely lingerie saleswoman. whom apparently is on her honeymoon, and an anxious father, desperate to get his daughter to the hospital, careen through a surreal car ride that is leading to nowhere.Having not seen the original by Mario Bava, rabid dogs appears just to be another kidnap that will end with protagonists and antagonists going through Helsinki syndrome, and then the crooks turning on each other.....usually in the name of love.But the maguffin here is that the father, played wonderfully by Lambert Wilson, is on a race against time to get his daughter to the hospital because a chance for a kidney transplant has become available and he only has a matter of hours before it will be rejected.And this is what makes the film so fascinating, Not only does the father have to contest with the fact that his daughter may not make it, but also he has to contend with the three crooks, who couldn't give a hoot about him or his goals....not to begin with anyway.Unfortunately though, the rest of the characters are not very well fleshed out. The criminals, who first appear to be as scared as their captives once their 'boss' is killed, end up nothing more than your archetypal criminals who have the same traits as many a criminal depicted in crime movies.You have the quiet one, the wild one who has an eye for the ladies, and then the ultimate in stereotypes, the criminal who appears to be reasoning with the captives, but ends up being just as bad as all the others.Ledoyen also, adds nothing to the film, other than to hold the child in the back of the car. There is a little of her backstory, but she literally gets left in the back seat for the majority of the film. The film wouldn't have changed at all if her character wasn't part of the narrative, but then the wild criminal wouldn't be wild if she wasn't part of the film.It's visually stunning, especially the final third, when it appears that the group have wandered on to the set of a John Carpenter film, it's full of weird and wonderful characters, celebrating some sort of religious myth.But what makes the film stand out from other crime films, other than its psychedelic visuals, is the final three minutes of the film. Just when you think it's ended with a predictable whimper, it gives you a huge slap in the face, and its amazing.Imagine from Dusk til Dawn doing it's genre change with three minutes to go.....it's as surprising as that.It has it's flaws, the second act is a little saggy, and the criminal element of the film is stereotypical on the verge of bland, but for the final three minutes, it's really worth seeing.

Like most horror/cult cinema fanatics, I don't like remakes. So when I heard there was going to be remake of one of the greatest movies of my all-time favorite director, I knew from beforehand that I would be even more skeptical than usually the case with remakes. "Cani Arrabbiati", a.k.a "Rabid Dogs" or "Kidnapped", was an ambitious Poliziotteschi/Euro-Crime project by the almighty Italian director Mario Bava (the most genius director who ever lived) and his son Lamberto in 1974, but due to legal issues and production company bankruptcies, the film sadly only got finished in 1997 long after Mario's death and the career peaks of Lamberto. Still, in spite of the juridical issues, it was one of the absolute highlights in its kind. I watched the remake (original French title: "Enragés") at the Brussels International Film Festival and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Although by no means an exceptional or astounding film, but nevertheless a solid and compelling thriller with a tense atmosphere from start to finish as well as intriguing characters, gritty action sequences and an exhilarating soundtrack. Sabri is the getaway driver of a violent bank heist, but their scheme goes awry almost straight from the beginning. Sabri, along with his three companions, must dump the conspicuous getaway car and blend into the crowds of a shopping mall. But their leader is badly hurt and the blood trail that he leaves behind puts all the city's police forces back on their tail. While the number of casualties disturbingly mounts, the gangsters take an attractive woman hostage and run back out into the streets. They stop another vehicle, an inconspicuous old grey Volvo, which also give them two more hostages; a father who was on his way to the hospital with his unconscious 4-year-old daughter for a lifesaving kidney transplant. This is still only just the beginning of a very long, intense and nightmarish journey with numerous obstacles, deadly confrontations and unforeseen surprises. Although the trio of fugitive hoodlums succeeds fairly well in coming across as cruel and menacing (particularly Vincent played by François Arnaud) they honestly aren't even half as nihilistic, loathsome and vile as the thugs in Bava's original. Compared to Blade or Thirty-Two of the 1974 film, these guys are merely rabid puppies instead of dogs and thus also the overall tone of "Enragés" is less unsettling due to this. The violence is quite explicit but not too shocking, and only a couple of scenes are truly memorable, like the stop at the gas station or the showdown during the feast of the bear town-festival. The climax, however, is very well-handled and in case you're not familiar with the story you definitely will be dumbfounded, as there's no way anyone could predict this type of plot-twist. The acting performances are more than adequate, with respectable roles for Lambert Wilson and the still extremely attractive Virginie Ledoyen as the hostages, but my personal favorite aspect of "Enragés" was undoubtedly the soundtrack. The eerie and tense tunes are often reminiscent of a Goblin or giallo soundtrack, and near the end there's also a beautiful choir version of Radiohead legendary song "Creep" (which, I think, was also used in "The Social Network")

Rabid Dogs (2015) ** (out of 4)A bank robbery goes horribly wrong so the robbers need to make an escape. They end up taking a female hostage but to gain access to a new vehicle they then jump into the car with a father who is trying to get his sick daughter to the hospital for an operation. This is a remake of Mario Bava's 1974 masterpiece, which in my opinion is one of the greatest Europeon crime movies ever made. It's one of the most intense movies you're ever going to see and the director brilliantly put you inside the car with these criminals to the point where you could feel the terror created by them. It's a quite remarkable film so this remake had a lot to try and live up to.If you're a fan of Bava's film then you really shouldn't go into this remake expecting anything similar. It's clear that the Bava film was going for tension and suspense whereas this one appears to just want to remake certain scenes from that movie and explode with a tad bit more graphic violence. I will freely say that there's nothing in this remake that compares to the original and it's actually more on par with that film's alternate version known as KIDNAPPED.The problem with this film is that there's just really nothing too special about it and had it been an American film then it probably would have gone straight-to-video. The performances are decent for the most part and there are a couple nice action scenes at the beginning. The start of the violence is handled quite well and catches you off guard. The problem with the film is that there's really no tension from start to finish and there's not an ounce of energy or emotion to be found.RABIG DOGS isn't a complete bomb but at the same time it doesn't seem to want to try and improve on the original. There are scenes from the original that are re-done here and there are some new twists done here but nothing is exciting or all that fresh. I'm one that fully supports remakes because it's interesting to see how someone else will do something that we're familiar with. Trying to remake such a great movie would always be a hard challenge but RABID DOGS just is so bland on so many levels that I don't see what the point was.