Bastille Day
Idris predicts a riot…
There’s a scene in Bastile Day that will stand as a towering monument to the precise moment in time it was made, as one riot inciter urges another to “unleash the hashtag” without any inkling of irony. It’s an exchange that elicits chuckles for all the wrong reasons – a common occurance in this passable Parisian thriller.
Further fanning the ‘Elba for Bond’ flames, Big ‘Dris stars as Sean Briar, a loose cannon CIA agent operating out of the French capital – Luther with a license to kill, essentially. When Richard Madden’s expert pickpocket Michael Mason is implicated in a local bombing after inadvertently pilfering a C4-stuffed satchel, Briar embarks on a one-man mission to bring him in. Naturally it’s all part of a larger conspiracy for the unlikely pair to blow wide open, one that goes to the heart of the French security services.
Groundbreaking it ain’t – in fact the plot bears more than a passing resemblance to at least two Die Hards – but there is fun to be had with Bastille Day. Elba and Madden prove an entertaining central duo, their relationship of convenience powered by weapons-grade bickering. Meanwhile, director James Watkins (best known for effective horrors Eden Lake and The Woman In Black) does a commendable job with the action. But for all Watkins’ sincere statements that Bastille Day has nothing to do with terrorism, the spectre of 2015’s devastating attacks in the French capital looms large over a film that evokes deadly serious subject matter (the Occupy movement, immigration policy, anti-police protests) to no real purpose.
It’s this tonal mishmash that proves Bastille Day’s undoing, the film never quite gelling in the way Watkins and co. presumably hoped it would. In another world this could have starred Bruce Willis and been directed by Pierre Morel, but even though we’re not dealing with a car crash of quite those proportions, there isn’t enough here to make this particular Bastille Day worth celebrating. THE VERDICT The ever-watchable Idris Elba and a handful of muscular action sequences are scuppered by a flaky-pastry plot which badly misjudges subject matter warranting more considered exploration. › Certificate 15 Director James Watkins Starring Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Charlotte Le Bon, Kelly Reilly Screenplay Andrew Baldwin Distributor Studiocanal Running time 92 mins