Guillaume Canet makes like Bruce Willis and other past regular-guy-as-action-hero models in “Ad Vitam,” which he co-wrote. The entertaining Netflix concoction stars Canet as a Parisian ex-cop forcibly pulled into new perils connected to the shootout that got him sacked. Putting its hero through paces that embrace everything from parkour to parasailing, Rodolphe Lauga’s feature is not dull. But it is increasingly hard to take seriously, as the script veers between gritty thriller terrain to the kind of overscaled set-pieces more apt for James Bond.
Those elements’ failure to gel gets exacerbated by an awkward story structure whose midsection is a long, two-part flashback. The splashy yet vague end result feels like a hoped-for launch to a franchise that lacks the distinct character to become one — in trying to be too many things at once, it emerges a slippery composite of familiar genre concepts.
At the start, Franck Lazarev (Canet) is working a highly photogenic civilian job, rappelling down historic buildings to check for structural cracks. His wife Leo (Stephane Caillard) is heavily pregnant with their first child. When they return from a doctor’s visit, they find their apartment completely trashed — not for the first time. Later, following the arrival of a suspicious new co-worker (Stephane Rideau), Franck nearly plunges to his death in what’s clearly workplace sabotage. Upon rushing home, he finds himself and Leo attacked by armed, masked intruders who they are surprisingly adept at combating, to a point. Still, the struggle ends badly, with the couple separated. Both are threatened with death if a mysterious key supposedly in Franck’s possession isn’t handed over.
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At this juncture, roughly half an hour in, the storyline jumps back one decade. Then, the future spouses were newly graduated from a two-year training program for GIGN, the primarily anti-terrorist tactical unit of France’s police forces (which belatedly explains how even a woman very close to giving birth nearly overpowered agents of an armed home invasion). Their tight-knit class of 10 plays as well as works together, yielding numerous scenes of camaraderie between the leads, colleagues like Ben (Nassim Lyes) and Nico (Alexis Manenti), plus significant others such as Nico’s wife Manon (Zita Hanrot). Meanwhile, Franck and Leo edge toward acknowledging mutual attraction, which apparently does not create a serious issue in terms of professional conduct.
These characters are likable, their collective vibe less defined by swaggering machismo than you’d find in a similar U.S. narrative. Still, the flashback disrupts early momentum, jumping again nine years forward to a night when on-duty Ben, Nico and Franck respond to reports of gunshots at an upscale hotel. That situation’s fatal consequences lead to Franck being discharged for not following protocol. At around the film’s one-hour mark, the timeline returns to the present, a few months later, our hero now racing to rescue his wife from kidnappers connected to that shootout. Turns out he’s not just dealing with criminal miscreants, but also with fallout from international espionage that the French government is frantically trying to cover up — even if it must sacrifice the central couple.
That’s a lot of convoluted business for a 96-minute feature, let alone one further burdened by scrambled chronology that doesn’t serve any essential overall storytelling purpose. Also tossed in are picturesque but gratuitous use of famous tourist landmarks as background, near-superheroic training montages, credible intimate character dynamics, a ruthless villain (Johan Heldenbergh as Vanaken) and action that in the home stretch goes absurdly over-the-top.
All these elements are enjoyable in themselves. They’re executed with sufficient polish and energy by Lauga, a former steadicam operator whose prior directorial efforts were more comedic. But “Ad Vitam” (i.e. “for life,” suggested here as a motto among GIGN recruits) doesn’t begin to meld its disparate factors into an organic whole, instead seeming like an unresolved compromise between warring commercial strategies. Does it want to be a classic Gallic policier primarily focused on investigative and domestic details? Or a stunt-driven rollercoaster recalling the likes of “Mission: Impossible” and “xXx” movies?
You can’t really have it both ways — though as the clashing factors end up reducing suspense and emotional involvement, that vain effort becomes a default raison d’etre here. If the intent was to provide Canet a vehicle that might sustain future strenuous challenges à la “Die Hard,” his athletic ready-and-willingness doesn’t compensate for the film’s lack of definition. Franck ultimately emerges a somewhat generic figure, less intriguing than various supporting characters we never quite get enough of.
Well cast, attractively produced, “Ad Vitam” is a superficially stimulating ride. But once it jerks to a halt, you may not feel you’ve really gone anywhere, or that the destination ever even mattered.