Point Blank

Even though Fred Cavayé (‘Anything for Her’) has carved out a niche for himself as a dependable writer and director of pulpy, against-the-clock, damsel-in-distress action thrillers, ‘Point Blank’ is what we’d now have to term a ‘Liam Neeson Movie’. That is, it’s a steely genre caper, like ‘Taken’ or ‘Unknown’, with a dash of brutal violence, a likable everyman protagonist who gets tangled in a criminal conspiracy and a vision of continental Europe as a hellish outland where, to quote Al Pacino in ‘Heat’, ‘You can get killed walkin’ your doggie!’

Neeson, alas, isn’t in this film, but the experience of watching it evokes visions of the inevitable US refit (‘Anything for Her’ was remade by Paul Haggis as ‘The Next Three Days’). Instead, we have Gilles Lellouche (pictured) as Samuel, a brawny but benevolent trainee nurse whose wife is on the cusp of dropping a sprog. In a standard wrong time/wrong place set-up, Samuel is coerced into smuggling Roschdy Zem’s wounded crim out of hospital, only to be roped into carrying out more depraved deeds when he finds out his wife has been taken hostage.

It’s hardly what you’d call high art, but Cavayé knows how to push buttons when it comes to straight-up, palm-sweating spectacle. It’s dumb and manipulative, such as the scene in which the bad guys almost dispose of the pregnant spouse by tossing her out of a window. But it’s also brisk and unpretentious, with no hint that we’re meant to take anything more away from this than a cheap but effective thrill.