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 t
would be a mistake to consider Jan Kounen's "Dobermann" an actual
movie. It's a 90-minute music video in the guise of a "clever" crime
thriller with hidden desires to be cheap splatterpunk nonsense. The
plot is appropriately simplistic, and the characters are accordingly
over the top, given little annoying traits in lieu of actual
characterization. If you wanted to watch a satirical crime film that
uses hyperbolic violence as a means to convey social commentary,
watch Oliver Stone's "Natural
Born Killers". "Dobermann" has ambitions of being another
"Natural Born Killers", but it only succeeds in showing just how
lacking it is.
Vincent Cassel ("Brotherhood
of the Wolf") stars as the titular Dobermann, a black
leather-clad bank robber with a trick out .357 Magnum.
Dobermann's gang of sadistic lowlifes consist of his deaf
girlfriend Nat, played by real-life girlfriend Monica Bellucci ("Tears
of the Sun"). Other gangmembers include a priest, a
trigger-happy idiot, a guy who brings his dog Godzilla to bank jobs
with him, and a cross dresser/prostitute with a wife and child back
home. Dobermann is being pursued by Tcheky Karyo ("Kiss
of the Dragon"), who plays a sadistic French cop name Cristini
who, since he's supposed to represent corruption, vileness, and just
plain bad voodoo, speaks English to remind us of the superiority of
being French. (And yes, if you were wondering, I am rolling my
eyes.)
The mess of a screenplay by Joel Houssin
obviously wants us to empathize with Dobermann and his gang, since
despite their many violent quirks they're nevertheless never as vile
as Cristini. The movie consists of basically two sequences: a
supposedly "genius" bank heist and a violent confrontation at a
nightclub frequented by cross dressers. And if you don't know that
Dobermann and his crew accepts the cross dresser played by Stephane
Metzger while Cristini and company throws the word "faggot" around
like it's going out of style, then you haven't been paying attention
to this review.
"Dobermann" wants to be a slick, stylish action
film, but there are just so many things wrong, from its laughably
unorthodox characters to its inconsistent plotting, that you can't
help but laugh at the vain silliness going on. Did I also mention
that Cristini is so sadistic that even his fellow cops call him a
Nazi? Or that Cristini thinks giving a live grenade to a baby is an
acceptable birthday present? Yes, I know it's all supposed to be
over the top on purpose and thus farcical. Then again, I would have
rather watch a movie of decent construction than be sold on an artsy
splatter film.
Even if you were to go into "Dobermann" for the
simple perverse enjoyment of mindless carnage, there's not much of
that to be found either. The movie is so incompetently put together
that even the inevitable orgy of violence at the nightclub sequence
is a letdown. The movie has such a poor grip on action scenes that
director Jan Kounen tries to make up for his inadequacies by
whirling his camera to and fro, doing close-ups and groovy camera
angles like he has attention deficit disorder, which I no doubt
believe he does.
Why not just make the bank robbers and the cops
equally sadistic and murderous? That would surely have resulted in a
confrontation of epic proportions. Instead, Dobermann slowly but
surely becomes our anti-hero. He's such a nice guy that he willingly
comes back after having escaped the nightclub firefight in order to
rescue a captured member of his gang. The point is, if you're going
to reduce your film to a quivering mess of exaggerated violence and
unrealistic characters and situations, then at least have the
decency to go all the way, so we can all enjoy in the mindlessness
of nonsensical splatterpunk.
"Dobermann" is such an embarrassment that I
have to wonder why the usually reliable Tcheky Karyo would let his
name be connected with this leftover waste of celluloid in the first
place. Tsk tsk. Time to fire that agent, Karyo.
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