I am a fan of French and European cinema, I like good quality movies and I am often critical about big studios American movies. And yet, dealing with 'President' a film that tries to combine the political thriller with the recent daughters_of_president sub-genre which gave a few movies recently I confess - the American do it better.
The premise of the movie is not very original, a French president who is involved in a web of dirty tricks has to deal with his daughter falling in love with a young economist at a time when his career is endangered by a series of scandals. He hires the young contender as an adviser, but then the conscience of the hero may make interfere in the political action and become a nuisance at the wrong time.
Unfortunately this is where the professionalism of the American movies plays best. This film does not succeed to provide the pace and clarity of the good American thriller movies, and does not supply any special dimension of psychology or social comment either. Whatever pretensions of human analysis the movie may have are lost in ambiguity, it looks like the director did not decide whether his characters are to be positive or negative until the end of the movie. Worse than all he did not decide how to finish history either, and I witnessed here an abrupt ending without any explanation that left me completely puzzled. I understand open endings, but this was not an open ending, this was a no-end ending. If somebody understood it and can explain, I would be very curious to hear.
The premise of the movie is not very original, a French president who is involved in a web of dirty tricks has to deal with his daughter falling in love with a young economist at a time when his career is endangered by a series of scandals. He hires the young contender as an adviser, but then the conscience of the hero may make interfere in the political action and become a nuisance at the wrong time.
Unfortunately this is where the professionalism of the American movies plays best. This film does not succeed to provide the pace and clarity of the good American thriller movies, and does not supply any special dimension of psychology or social comment either. Whatever pretensions of human analysis the movie may have are lost in ambiguity, it looks like the director did not decide whether his characters are to be positive or negative until the end of the movie. Worse than all he did not decide how to finish history either, and I witnessed here an abrupt ending without any explanation that left me completely puzzled. I understand open endings, but this was not an open ending, this was a no-end ending. If somebody understood it and can explain, I would be very curious to hear.