Rivals (Les Liens du sang) (2008)

Critic Reviews

• Mike Edwards, What Culture

  Why remake a decade?

• David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

  ...an absorbing crime thriller.

• Rosamund Witcher, Empire Magazine

  The setting is a Paris packed with tight leather jackets, big hair and foxy girls, and the action, sex and family drama make for an enjoyable ride. Unfortunately, the denouement is frustratingly abrupt.

• David Jenkins, Time Out

  This frisky if long-winded and derivative French policier never gets off the starting-blocks despite some charismatic performances and intriguingly executed set-pieces.

• Trevor Johnston, Film4

  Although it draws on a real-life memoir, this Gallic crime drama never really gets going. There's potential in the tension between a wavering ex-con and his cop sibling, but the actors seem to have been cast the wrong way round.

• James Christopher, Times [UK]

  This being the gritty 1970s, the subtitled dialogue is as hard as nails. The Cain and Abel rivalry unfolds like a dismal episode of Minder.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  The result is an enjoyably rich, gamey stew of crime and family betrayal - and there's an interesting mention of 70s French super-crim Jacques Mesrine, the subject of a new biopic starring Vincent Cassel.

• Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph

  Jacques Maillot's enjoyably retro crime drama, which fits itself out with enough period bangers and bad moustaches for an entire Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective.

• Rob Daniel, Sky Movies

  Hopefully, with this polished policier Maillot will get the small screen funding to expand this story and tie up some of the intriguing loose ends.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  It is not so much a wig, more a man-eating bird's nest. And not just an actor becomes lost beneath it but an entire film.

• Anthony Quinn, Independent

  Featuring possibly the quickest bank heist ever committed to screen, Rivals bumps along agreeably, if not scintillatingly, though Canet and Cluzet are a good match as the frères maudits.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  Atmospheric, noirish French cop thriller with strong performances from its two leads, though it's slightly let down by a disappointing climax.

• Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

  Gritty and tough, this period thriller about brothers on opposite sides of the law has remarkably complex characters and a vivid sense of style. Despite a choppy approach, it really grapples with some strong moral dilemmas.

Read all 13 critic reviews