Garde à vue

I saw the original one, French movie "Garde à vue". Then it was brought to my attention that once again americans decided to steal a great movie. But since it was Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman I was curious to see it, good actors in an american remake for once.

Well... I have to admit that even though I think the original is, and by far, better than the remake, it's not so bad.

Hackman and Freeman can't compete against Lino Ventura and Michel Serrault, especially Freeman who turned out to be average compared to Ventura. On the other hand Hackman was suprisingly good, very close to Serrault. In my opinion Harvey Keitel would have been superior to Freeman, but that's just talking...

Hackman understood how self-centered, control lover / manipulative and worried about appearances his character is. Also troubled since he's innocent but he's indeed attracted to minors, and even if he ends up claiming there's nothing wrong about that, it's obvious he feels guilty about it. A very complicated character, with many tones of voice and emotions to render all over the movie, and it was well done. Special applause at the end when Hackman wasn't looking furious or sad to confess, but just resigned, a man who's giving up. And not looking happy to be free to go, because he's been completely unmasked, which is horrible for a man like him.

On the other hand the first time you see Freeman on the screen, when he calls Hackman, he's a columbo-like. Falsely disorganized, with a fake friendly attitude, pretending it's just a ten minute ride etc. Which really wasn't a good idea, but probably not Freeman's choice, I know. But during the whole interrogation Freeman looks like a guy without emotion, mono-tone kind of guy. Even when he says "*beep* you" he barely looks angry... Ventura did a much better job at playing the cop who's making it personnal, feeling sick just thinking about it, determined to find the one who did those horrible crimes. Which is quite strange because Freeman's character has two daughters and Ventura's didn't, like they were trying to make it more a personnal thing with the father who identifies to the victims's families. Freeman just didn't get it.

And most of it, Garde à vue is a huis-clos for 85% of the movie when the remake is outside the office half of the time, maybe more. American version is not as intimate as the original, which is a shame.

Funny thing: I got to say that Hackman's wig was a good idea, kind of detail that really suited the character.

Anyone else saw them both ?