Point Blank

Stronger in the fine details than in the big picture, the French thriller Point Blank is energetic and, for the most part, tightly assembled. But the big finish is too big for the story the film is trying to tell, and it layers a few too many American potboiler touches over the parts of the script that do work well. A nurse (Gilles Lellouche) saves a John Doe patient from certain death after the man’s respirator is tampered with. But the John Doe was a first-rate criminal (Roschdy Zem) who had crossed the wrong kingpin, so when the nurse intervenes, he finds himself on the run, as the injured criminal tries to clear his own name and rescue his pregnant wife. It’s an interesting premise that produces a few mini-payoffs, but there are too many crooked cops and ho-hum gangsters for the film to really rise above average.