Disorder (15)

Directed by Alice Winocour
Picturehouse, Liverpool
From 25th March 2016

Reviewed by Colin Serjent

The title Disorder relates to the mental state of the main protagonist in the film, Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts) (Rust and Bones), who is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following a gruelling time when serving in the French army in the USA and NATO conflict against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But it could also easily apply to the confused and incoherent state of the film itself.

Vincent, on enforced leave from the army due to his psychiatric problems, is hired as a body guard on behalf of the wife and son of a very rich Lebanese businessman, He has flown abroad, to negotiate with other leading tycoons about subjects we are not sure what. He has leading French politicians as influential comrades, but the businessman is not what he appears to be.

The most farcical aspect of the movie is the reaction, or rather the lack of it, experienced by his wife Jessie (Diane Kruger) and her young boy Ali (Zaid Errougui-Demonsant) when armed international assassins try to kill them both, when being driven in a car by Vincent, after returning from a trip to the beach.

Shots are fired by both the assassins and Vincent but, although Vincent is accustomed to this type of violence, the woman and boy show no after effects at all of this overt hostility towards them.

The wife is once again the target of another attack by international assassins, this time inside her palatial mansion, but after Vincent beats off an attack on her by one of them, he ferociously pounds the guy's head repeatedly against a glass table, smashing open the front of his head, while in full view of her. Once again she shows no signs of distress in the aftermath of this vicious assault.

One saving grace from the movie is the music soundtrack, composed by French DJ Gesaffelstein, producing hypnotic pounding beat music to symbolise Vincent's periods of inner torment and anxiety attacks.

Some found the final reel unfathomable but not me! It is a wish fulfilment experienced by Vincent, denied to a lonely and troubled man.

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