User Reviews

As the story begins, we watch a truck stopping in front of an office building. The man that descends from the vehicle is an exterminator, supposedly, but of course, he is someone impersonating a bug man. He gets rid of some secretaries and begins to arrange the place, changing into a business suit. He is Solal, a well connected member of a mafia family operating in France. He had set an appointment with Lardier, a man that knows his identity and knows he was set up. Solal is murdered on the spot.

Solal's family swears to avenge his death. His brother, nicknamed Cash, enters the story at this point. He and his family have devised a plan for getting the murderer and for a caper that involves the stealing of valuable diamonds that a rich man will be bringing to a resort hotel in the Riviera.

There is an ambitious police investigator, Julia Molina, who is into Cash's activities. She wants to infiltrate the operation because she has a plan in mind that might be flawless. For that, she must become irresistible to another group that is being put together to help with the caper. She is in for a big surprise! "Ca$h" is a French thriller by Eric Besnard, who also wrote the script for the film. One thing for sure, Mr. Besnard has a keen eye in which to set the action. The director takes us on a tour of the world that only a few privileged people get to know and play. Mr. Bernard has written a lot for the movies. Giles Henry, the cinematographer, clearly understood what the man in charge wanted, giving the film what it needed to go along with the action.

Jean Dujardin plays Cash with playful style. Valeria Golino, a good Italian actress usually seen in American films, is on hand to play Julia Molina. Jean Reno, an actor that has done a lot of action films, doesn't have much to do in here. Alice Taglioni, Francois Berland, Cieran Hands, and the rest of the supporting cast make a good contribution to the picture.

Contains a partial spoiler at the end with a warning line as a comment about another review...

I found this a delightful, fun and entertaining French movie about a masterful and highly convoluted confidence crime (or crimes). Thanks TF1 et al for a fun and entertaining movie! I'm recommending this one to friends for light entertainment.

I feel it is well cast, has some fine contemporary actors/actresses and I believe they play their characters well. I feel an easy-going style, fun, light-hearted portrayal to the characters that plays well in the overall style of story. This is, after all, light-hearted pure entertainment. I can imagine the characters fun to portray and this film fun to make.

The scenery and setting are bright and up-scale. Nothing is dreary or drab, adding to the overall light-hearted and delightful feel.

I feel the reveals are well paced and will not give away too much or too little (at least for me) right up to the end. The pace seems right to me. It felt quick but not rushed. It kept moving and left me little time to ponder deeply, something I feel appropriate for this type of movie.

There is virtually no action in this movie, it is all comedic drama with what I feel is well-paced tension and relief.

Some dialog is in English, some in French. I've not been able to figure that one out, since all the characters speaking English are supposedly French. The English dialog has some Anglicisms recognizable to me (e.g. a "fiver") but may not be to some in the US and the English accents British or Canadian. The English (I'm not a francophone) subtitles for the French dialog seem very natural with the characters and what little French I know although I can't speak for the total accuracy of the translation. This is one of the easiest subtitled movies to watch I've seen, and I tend to browse the foreign film sections of video stores and rentals more than any other section.

I think all but the most naive viewers will start realizing what is really happening very close to the end, but not too soon to spoil the ending. I think the writers, director and cast have all made viewers' reveal timing nicely elastic and not brittle.

Partial Spoiler Alert....

One reviewer felt that no group would do anything this elaborate just to leave _____ out in the Mediterranean in a boat out of gas and found that too far outside the realm of suspended disbelief for comfort. I believe that review completely misses the strongly implied impending mortal revenge about to take place off camera and just past the movie's time line. But, I may be willing to suspend disbelief for this form of entertainment a little more than that reviewer. As with all movies of this type, the intricacy of the scheme hatched is far beyond what anyone would sensibly rely on in real life.

End Partial Spoiler...

Although I'm a big fan of movies with plot twists, there are occasions where these can go too far, to the point of negating everything that went on before and telling you that everything you just watched was a big lie. The 2003 film "Basic" falls into that category, and "Ca$h" follows the same path. The good side of this is that the film is almost entirely unpredictable; the bad side is that the whole incredibly elaborate plan of the true mastermind(s) at the end relies on the victim(s) doing EXACTLY what they are expected to do - one "wrong" move, and the whole plan would go to ruins. If you can live with that, the film is good-looking fluff; Valeria Golino, with a new, sophisticated hairstyle, looks as if she hasn't aged a day since "Hot Shots" back in the early 90's, and Alice Taglioni is sexy & tricky. (**1/2)

CA$H is a French con thriller that feels like it could have been made at any point in the last fifty years -- which is a good thing. The plot is nearly impossible to describe due to the many double crosses - and frankly it would be a shame to spoil it anyway - but suffice to say that it's about a con-man who sets out for vengeance on the person who murdered his brother. The cinematography and direction are a little unsure - not quite as slick as they want to be - but the many very good actors (some British) led by super-charmer Jean Dujardin and buttressed by several very pretty girls more than make up for it, as do the lovely locations in the South of France and the general old-fashioned charm of the piece. The plot changes course practically every ten minutes and even though, looking back, it's utterly unbelievable, it's still a lot of fun to watch.

"Cash" serves as a showcase for some of the most famous and popular contemporary actors in Europe. The movie is long on style, entertainment and polish. The movie is short on depth, edge and relevance. Probably it's best watched and appreciated as an expertly made "divertissement". The escapist nature of the whole is underlined by the sequences set in a jaw-dropping luxury hotel for the very rich. Most of us are never going to come near a place like this, unless we discover a Degas in our attic or become the sex kitten of a Russian oligarch.

"Cash" contains some good jokes, with the best of them related to a posh charity event where benefactors can become "godparent" to an exotic animal.

The plot deals with more than a simple police-versus-criminals conflict, given that both the criminals (many of whom are professional scammers) and the police have split up in various rival factions. There's a lot of plotting and counter-plotting. There's also a lot of secret agendas and shifting alliances. It's all pretty convoluted, meaning that even the more attentive viewers may reach a point where they can no longer see the forest for the trees.

The most intriguing character and the most intriguing performance coincide in Valeria Golino playing a specialized police investigator who may be perfectionist, ambitious, naive, reckless, unscrupulous or any combination of the above.

The music, the plot, the scenes (old man faking a heart attack...), the cast of characters, the fancy hotel, the revenge from a rival con artist ... reeks of the Ocean franchise. When did French cinema start being so complacent and disrespectful to the viewers?