The world of the insane. August 6, 1945 was a dark day in Japan’s history because it was then that the U.S. military bombarded Hiroshima, killing more than 90,000 people. Exactly 20 years later, a boy named Olivier was born in Versailles. His native name was Fontana, but the boy grew up and became creative people and, as many of this circle decided to take a pseudonym. Soon he became known as Olivier Megaton, which in French means “megaton”, so he honored the memory of those who died in Hiroshima, taking for the surname the physical unit of measurement of TNT equivalent.
Olivier Megaton initially rotated among artists, participating in their events, especially dedicated to the newfangled trends of the style of “graffiti”, which attracts more and more fans. But everything changed when Olivier met the video maker Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who advised Megaton to associate his future with cinema. Subsequently, Olivier Megaton will direct the third “Carrier”, the second and third parts of “Hostage”, the action movie “Colombiana”, but before that all he had a debut film and this is “Exit”, released in 2000, which was facilitated by Luc Besson himself, who became the producer of the film (in general, in the new century it is difficult to imagine French cinema, released without the label “EuropaCorp”, which Besson runs).
For his debut, Olivier Megaton chose the genre of a psychological thriller, and he wrote the script himself in one person. An interesting fact is that the real name of the director is Fontana, as mentioned above, and the main role in the film was played by one Patrick Fontana. I don’t know if they are related, but maybe. Patrick Fontana plays a mentally ill man who was recently released from a hospital and put there after being charged with a string of brutal murders. That is, Stan (the name of the hero Fountain) is essentially a serial maniac. During his stay in the hospital, the murders stopped, but as soon as Stan left, they began in a new wave. Who will be the main suspect?
But if everything was so easy in the plot, Luc Besson would hardly give his blood, which means that the viewer is prepared for an unexpected turn, where the killer can be anyone, even someone who does not think at all. In general, the viewer can play detective on the couch. However, I must say that not everything will be so simple in the “Exit” and the final can clearly cause surprise with its surprise. But here’s what is sad: only the finale is worth watching “Exit”, the rest of the action is a pile of unrelated scenes, ordinary dialogues and not quite understandable characters. In general, the inexperience of Megaton in this case bloomed exuberant.
And even not happy with the camera work. For some reason, Michelle Taburio chose the lower angle of shooting, that is, we are invited to watch “Exit” from the floor. This is very stressful, because you feel the complete static of the actors. It is likely that Megaton wanted to thicken the colors even more and picked up together with the lighting masters a brilliant darkened sphere, as if conveying the limitations in the actions of the heroes, as if they were in a prison cell. This attempt to make the film claustrophobic was unsuccessful, because everything is too dark, dirty, disgusting and dull. Well, I won’t talk much about the actors’ play, since, basically, unknown performers were taken and someone did not have to declare themselves in “Exit”.
Almost without a doubt I put Olivier Megaton’s debut film an average rating and a neutral type of reviews. But we must understand that this was achieved only thanks to a really unexpected finale.
5 out of 10
