Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 0/10
Cast: Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Kelly Reilly, Charlotte Le Bon, Alexander Cooper, Anatol Yusef, José Garcia, James Cox, Laura Hydari, Karl Farror, Eriq Ebouaney, Daniel Westwood, Jorge Leon Martinez, Alex Martin.
There are times when you do have to wonder if some film makers actually know the difference between a good film with a plot that doesn’t tax the brain too much and that where they make a film just purely for the credit or the financial gain that might come their way, the plot as weak as a watered down soup from a vending machine in a bus terminus, the acting as interesting as mould growing in a Petri dish and all the action of a night in the morgue, where the only excitement is seeing just how badly the film runs towards its bitter and thankful conclusion.
It takes a monumental effort to get to that point, where to leave the film is overwhelming but the voyeur in us all is just too powerful to ignore, the knowing that a night in purgatory would at least hold a bar enthralled with the insight of what lays ahead for us; such is the damning accusation that Bastille Day will do well to rise above but undoubtedly fall quicker than an Aston Villa fan’s interest in the goings on in life outside of the Premiership.
It is alright to be tired, to give the occasional dip in performance, after all nobody can sustain 100 per cent day in day out; yet being tired should not mean drifting into wilful coma, of snoring loudly at the dinner table just as the host has toasted your health and vigour and yet Bastille Day does it so well, it doesn’t just fall into a coma, it revels in it.
From start to finish there is nothing that gives it flavour, nothing that makes it legitimate or entertaining and it such a shame that otherwise consummate actor Idris Elba allowed himself to be placed within such a disaster, such a dreadful placing of ambition.
Bastille Day is a film that implores the authorities to lock it up and throw away the key; to hide it away from the film makers of the future, for nothing should ever let this cinematic failure be seen again.
Ian D. Hall