Anything For Her

Keeping the suspense set-pieces on the right side of plausible, director Cavaye and co-writer Guillaume Lemans have crafted a striking thriller with a strong central performance from Gallic Robert Powell-alike Lindon.

Imbuing his Julien with the right level of determination, compassion and brains, Lindon convincingly pulls off the desperation that could transform a tweedy teacher into a driven jail breaker, with the requisite smarts to believably plan it all out.

Surrounding Lindon with a well-written supporting cast, Cavaye allows room for touching moments with Julien's young son (the endearing Roch), his quietly estranged father (a stoic Perrier), and the glowering detective (the ferocious looking Graia) who appears when Julien slips up.

Taking up a relatively minor portion of screen time, yet felt throughout, is Kruger's incarcerated wife.  Conveying suicidal despair (a scene when she learns she is doomed to remain in prison is one of the film's best) and resilience, Kruger is the kind of woman most men would risk breaking into prison for.

And when a twist of fate forces an early kickstart of the plan, Cavaye generates a steaming head of high tension.  From Julien's hazardous raid on a drug dealer's money stash to the climactic bust, the plan quickly unravelling in the face of the police investigation, the director proves himself deft and devious at devising traps and pitfalls for his characters.

And, with believable twists and turns during the climax, Cavaye even manages a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to his tale.

Although belonging to the recent trend of French thrillers, Anything For Her's muted colours and noirish atmosphere recall such 70s movies as The Watchmaker of St Paul or Claude Chabrol's suspense melodramas.

We suggest you do (almost) anything to see it.

Rob Daniel