20131117: Thriller Review--Boarding Gate

Boarding Gate

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French live action feature length film, 2006, rated R, 106 minutes, thriller; aspect 2.35.
2. IMDB: 5.1/10.0 from 2,550 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 30% on the meter; 19% liked it from 2,329 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.4/5.0 from 104,861 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Olivier Assayas.
6. Starring: Asia Argento as Sandra, Michael Madsen as Miles Rennberg, Karl Ng as Lester Wang, Kelly Lin as Sue Wang, Kim Gordon as Kay, Alex Descas as Andrew.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Sandra and Miles have a long talk about their long, slow dissolve into a permanent breakup.  She goes off to work with Sue and Lester Wang.  She kills Miles for Lester Wang. Then she's off to yet another gig in Hong Kong under a new identification.


2. Her friend Lisa goes to Hong Kong as well, but separately.  Sandra finally gets to the appointed place, and finds Lisa murdered.  Whom to trust? She kills two would-be assassins, then goes on the run.


3. Sandra talks to Sue, who is also in Hong Kong.  Sue says Sandra can meet Lester but Sandra meets Sue instead.  They talk about Lester, and his cheating on Sue.  They talk as well about Sue's expertise with Beijing versus Lester's being limited to Europe and Hong Kong.


4. By this time, there is a warrant for Sandra's arrest for her murder of the two assassins she killed.  She has no ID that will allow her to fly or register at a hotel.  Plus, Sue drugged her.  Ah, jealousy.


5. She awakes in a dwelling that one of Lester's friends owns. She gives Sandra passport, tickets, and money for a trip to Shanghai, where a job awaits her.  Lester is not happy with Sue.  Sandra sees Lester meet with Andrei, Miles' long time partner.  So, she killed Miles for Andrei.  Nice.  What will she do with this knowledge?  Smells like a sequel, but I do not see one in IMDB.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Female agent of crime bosses services her adrenaline addiction while being dogged by treachery.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 A bit blurry and soft in focus for perhaps 80% of the film.  The camera work was jumpy for far too many minutes.


2. Sound: 4/10 Better than the video.  However, sound also transmits information; well, sometimes it does.  The Netflix version had unacceptable problems.  There were dozens of lines in French, with no translation in the subtitles.  This was not good.  There were five times as many lines in Chinese, also with no English in the subtitles. That was even worse.


3. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of Kelly Lin and Michael Madsen, but Asia Argento was more bizarre than interesting.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 This is a nice 10 minute short done in 106 minutes.  The conversations between Miles and Sandra went on forever.  Thirty plus minutes of those conversations could have been cut.  The conversations between Sandra and Sue go on forever.