Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases


La Fille de l'Air (1992)

Director: Maroun Bagdadi

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

This big-screen treatment of a notorious 1986 French prison breakout plays rather like an extended TV 'reconstruction'. It's based on the autobiography of Nadine Vaujour (Dalle), a secretary who fell for fugitive armed robber Michel (Fortineau), when her petty-crook brother asked her to shelter him. After a doomed attempt to go straight, Michel was recaptured and given a heavy sentence, while Nadine served several months on a complicity charge - during which time the couple married and she gave birth to a son. On release, distressed by Michel's mental deterioration, this determined woman learned to fly a helicopter and successfully freed her husband from prison. Lebanese director Bagdadi handles the physical details with visceral aplomb (a raid on the Vaujour household is, for example, absolutely terrifying), but neglects the contextualising niceties of characterisation. It's one thing to allow the audience room to consider their own moral perspective, another, surely, to leave the motivations of these real-life people so frustratingly opaque. A stellar cast can do little but look scruffy and hope the narrative's factual interest gets them through. It does (just), but the psychological grit of the story is clearly elsewhere.

Author: TJ

Time Out Film Guide


What do you think?
Post your review now

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

*mandatory fields




Most popular on this site


Top Stories

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has David Cronenberg turned tame?

Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?

The 10 worst date movies

The 10 worst date movies

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films

Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas

10 unlikely badboy biopics

10 unlikely badboy biopics

Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day

Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing