Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Female Agents (2008)

Director: Jean-Paul Salomé

2
Average user rating
1 review

Movie review

From Time Out London

Or ‘Band of Sisters’. 1944: a team of female French evacuees, led by Sophie Marceau’s battle-weary resistance fighter, are hired by the Special Operations Executive to infiltrate a Nazi hospital and retrieve a geologist who holds information key to the impending Normandy landings. But, following possibly the least subtle rescue attempt in espionage history, the mission is compromised and this well-scrubbed half-dozen are forced to flee to Paris, evading the Gestapo and plotting the murder of villainous Oberst Heindrich (a sneering Moritz Bleibtreu).

‘Female Agents’ is a proud throwback to the classic wartime spy thriller, tossing in all the expected plot twists, double crosses and foot chases. But it never manages to capture the spirit of its forebears thanks to a plodding script, uninspired direction and some unintelligible narrative convolutions. The (notably male) filmmakers’ attitude towards their heroines is oddly skewed: Marceau’s ball-busting Louise cuts a fine figure, but her sister agents are a useless bunch.

Variously weak, flighty and treacherous, they tend to spend much of their time stripping off and being tortured– there are some troubling scenes, culminating in a tasteless naked suicide loaded with redundant religious symbolism. There’s a fair amount to appreciate here, much of it cosmetic: the period recreation is superb, and the striking central cast carry off their dashing ’40s couture with aplomb. But one can’t help feeling that the heroines who inspired the story deserve a more spirited tribute than this coarse, derivative girl’s-own adventure.

Author: Tom Huddleston 2008-06-24 12:25:01

Time Out London Issue 1975: June 26 - July 2, 2008

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

  • John Cooper said...
    Posted on Aug 15 2008 09:25 Yet again, a Time Out review provides a completely
    misleading review. The shallowness attributed to the film is really that of the reviewer, who responds with the head rather than the heart . . . a common fault in young
    `up-themselves `reviewers with little experience of the world. Admittedly the female agents are an attractive bunch, also unforgivable in the eyes of feminist reviewers, who prefer their female heroes to be ugly and cerebral. The film is fast-moving with graphic realistic
    action scenes . .. . and ironically it is these actions scenes with their strong doses of violence, death and torture which are the most effecting in that they highlight the
    extreme suffering undergone by so many women during
    the Seoond World War. Women are not as physically strong as men, and cannot as easily harden themselves
    for the ruthlessness needed in conflict situations. There is then a poignancy in the film which goes deeper than
    those war-films overloaded with aesthetic artifice and
    `auteur' sensibilities. The `posturing` in the Time Out
    review is nowhere to be seen in the film and the film is the better for it.
    see
    Report as inappropriate

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Female Agents

Cast & crew

Director: Jean-Paul Salomé

Cast: Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, Déborah François, Moritz Bleibtreu full cast

Genre(s): Action/Adventure

Duration: 117 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.