November gets a nod, Men Of Plastic not fantastic

November (NC16)

107 minutes, opens on Thursday

3 stars

The story: A series of coordinated suicide bombings strike Paris in November 2015. French director Cedric Jimenez reconstructs the five-day police investigation in the immediate aftermath.

Five sleepless days and infinite hours of false tips, dead ends, nerve-fraying fatigue and violent interrogations.

The details and characters based on historic events have been fictionalised for security reasons, but November feels anxiously real in the pressure exerted upon the French counter-terrorism unit. Already, 130 civilians have been killed, and the agents must prevent another attack by identifying and apprehending the Islamic State perpetrators in an impossible manhunt spanning Europe and beyond.

That one of the suspects wears Day-Glo sneakers is, laughably, their only lead.

Jean Dujardin plays the chief commander of the operation with Sandrine Kiberlain, Anais Demoustier and Jeremie Renier the other key members.

There is no time for character development even though these are name actors in solid performances. The ticking-clock assignment demands full attention.

Hard-charging crime dramas are the stock-in-trade of film-maker Jimenez, besides. His 2014 mob saga The Connection also starred Dujardin, who had won an Academy Award for The Artist (2011), and this grim and suspenseful French procedural thriller embeds viewers in the police action including the door-to-door raids.

A witness (Lyna Khoudri) comes forward suddenly mid-story, claiming to know the fugitives’ hideout. Is she a trap? Should the officers trust her?

Instinct is as critical as ammunition in fighting this intractable war on terror: the southern city of Nice was targeted barely a year later, in July 2016.

Hot take: Think your job is stressful? Try being an anti-terrorist cop.

Men Of Plastic (PG13)

112 minutes, opens on Thursday

2 stars

 

The story: If this South Korean comedy is to be believed, Apgujeong district in Seoul is the beauty capital of Asia today all thanks to a hustler played by Don Lee.

Lee (Train To Busan, 2016; Eternals, 2021) wears orange hair and floral shirts for his role of a brash go-getter in 2007 Apgujeong, who hits upon the idea for a 15-storey plastic surgery empire. Jung Kyung-ho co-stars as a suspended cosmetic surgeon he persuades to be his business partner. No licence? No problem.

Men Of Plastic is awash in counterfeit products, false marketing, illicit Chinese investment, “ghost surgery” performed by unsupervised assistants and every medical practice both irregular and unregulated.

There is much to satirise, even criticise, in the US$1.95 billion (S$2.64 billion) K-aesthetics industry and the society’s commodification of beauty.

Perplexingly, director Im Jin-soon strays instead into a dull and pointless buddy caper of the two associates falling out as they involve more and more money-hungry cronies in their booming venture.

The supporting ensemble add hubbub but no comic value, and Lee is by the end reverting to his tough guy act, punching people.

His frustration is understandable. Lee is also the movie’s producer, and he would not have wanted to follow up his summer box-office smash The Roundup (2022) with such a dud.

Hot take: A beauty industry farce incapable of even skin-deep entertainment.