What a waste of my time!!!

I'll tell you why so serious

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This movie makes us think and wonder. Enthralling. Very interesting characters. A quiet story but stirring deep in our hearts. It made me feel and think about the emotions and thoughts happening to the characters. Like a good book, it's good that it's slow. There's room for subjective interpretations on the many layers of story. The viewer can identify itself to either of the main characters, which is rare in modern films. The cinematography and sound track are so perfectly matched to the film that it never distracts us.Worth seeing and recommending. Diane

The movie has a simple and short story. John an experienced bank rubber (acted by Johnny Hallyday) enters a small town to rub a bank. By accident, he meets an old school teacher, played by Jean Rochefort, that happens to be so kind that allow him to stay at his old antique place. Apparently these two guys have totally different backgrounds but they share a common thing. They are not happy. The old teacher is thirsty for adventure while the the experienced rubber is sick of it. This contrast is the essence of the story and in fact thats all what the movie is about. The main focus of the film is on the interaction between the main characters and the way they affect each other. Even though they don't really change their course of life but at the end, in a surreal scene, it seems that they really have wanted to change their places.There are a few things that I like to mention about the movie. First it has a slow pace, building gradually without any intensity or complication. Definitely this is not always a good choice but the style perfectly fits the story. However to my opinion there are some parts that doesn't add any meaning to the whole. For example the scene where the other thieves are trying to steal a car to use it in the rubbery is really extra (maybe it was there just to advertise BMW cars) Another example is the mysterious driver that doesn't speak at all except for a short sentence at 10:00 am each day. I don't understand what is the point of putting this in the story? The choice of the actors is great. Specially Johnny Hallyday with his Wolfy-eyes doesn't need to put much effort into the act, we just believe it! At the other hand Jean Rochefort's act as expected is perfect. The music is beautiful. In some places, the sound of piano interleaves with the gangster-like theme that is quite clever. It also helps the director to better depict the atmosphere of the story.In overall I enjoyed the movie. Good job!

The fact that the car door wasn't locked, to convey the very trustful nature of small city life. The fact that the loud youngster in the restaurant/bar was a former student. The fact that the silent driver utters a phrase at 10 o'clock every day. The fact that the bread seller asks "anything else", and that Milan thwarts her by correcting his order from one baguette to two baguettes before she has a chance to ask for "anything else". The small insert showing the student that comes to review a book by Balzac and gets a lesson on what Eugenie would have done by the teacher's sub. All these minutiae are carefully scripted, making it a great story.

"I would like to be filmed by you".These tender words pronounced by Johnny Hallyday were the catalyst for Patrice Leconte to work with him and led to the creation of "l'Homme Du Train". Very simply, it's Leconte's best film since his wondrous "la Fille Sur Le Pont" (1999). One can say that this wish from the most popular French singer ever arrived at the right time. It means at a time when Leconte's career was cluttered with setbacks. The fashion "la Fille Sur Le Pont" heralded with a love story at the core of all the movies which followed it began to show signs of breathlessness as the stale, old-fashioned "Rue Des Plaisrs" (2002) testified. So what could Leconte do to boost his career again? Why not producing a men story? Thus, "l'Homme Du Train" constitutes a clear return to a genre Leconte has a liking for: the duo of men. This genre gave Leconte his very best film: "Tandem" (1987) in which Jean Rochefort and Gérard Jugnot were a remarkable mismatched pair. Fifteen years later a new mismatched pair strikes again. There's still Jean Rochefort who acts a retired French literature teacher. He teams up this time with Johnny Hallyday, a weary gangster who prepares a last break-in. Apparently, nothing lets predict a friendship between them but against all odds, the two men will become inseparable. Why? In "Nocturne Indien" (1989), Alain Corneau's best effort to date a character says that "we all have two lives. The true one, the one we dreamed of as a child and that we keep on living in a subterranean way and the false one, the one we live every day and leads us to the coffin". This cue, at least its second half could serve as the thrust developed by Leconte in this film. The staple is the unlikely meeting and friendship between two men that everything opposes but will strike up a solid friendship. This friendship is strengthened by the fact that Manesquier and Milan are both sick of their respective lives which seem constricting for both of them. Each one envies each other's life and they have good reasons for this: old age and especially death are very close to them.So Manesquier is tired of his cozy life in his lascivious house and dreams of an adventurous, hazardous one. His friendship with Milan prompts him to assess his life, perhaps not a failed existence but an unfulfilled one which could have been so much better. And see how Manesquier is so lonely in his spacious house! Behind his self-assured appearance and his sparkling look he conceals a deep vulnerability. The "Lecontian" hero par excellence. Now what about his sidekick Milan? He carries on his shoulders a distressing past and is well aware that he's getting old and gradually losing his means of defense, just check the sequence in the café. He would have liked to spend a good part of his life in a draft proof universe in slippers but as he says: "I have never worn slippers". Still about him, in the beginning of the film, there's a little telling detail that tells a lot about Milan's weariness of his dangerous life: to go to the chemist's, he goes through a round-about and there's a white pointer painted on the ground. Milan goes the opposite way of this pointer...Leconte prefers to show us signs emanating from the two pals' will to change or exchange their lives: Milan learns Manesquier to shoot with a gun and the latter by wearing his leather jacket's sidekick puts himself in the shoes of a baddie. Then a symbolic action: Manesquier goes to the hairdresser and asks his hairdresser to have a new haircut (a delightful allusion to another Leconte masterpiece "Le Mari De La Coiffeuse", 1990). As for Milan, Manesquier gives him slippers and one day as he's absent acts the French literary teacher... with obvious limits but manages quite well of his task.So, it is a well-rounded assessment of two cohesive men portraits which admirably mesh. As for the rest, Leconte's magic touch, the one that keeps his fans happy is palpable everywhere. First, it was a shrewd idea to have shot his film in the fall. This decaying climate serves the film and his topic. Furthermore, by locating the action in this small town in Southern France where"everyone knows everyone", Leconte unearths unsuspected gifts of entomologist. And there's still this bias for the devastating absurd detail in the bargain like the baker who keeps on asking to her customers: "and with this?" or this gangster who delivers only one line every day at ten o'clock in the morning. And let's not forget witty lines galore: "Thanks for everything". "You know, I only gave you a drink of water".Rochefort and Hallyday's roles were written according to their capacities of actors. So, they were written with care and respect. Rochefort proves once again here that he works wonders with Leconte. Hallyday was physically ideally cast as Milan but I would have liked that he was able to shade his acting a little more. But he's first and before all a singer... And while I'm on the possible reservations about Leconte's work, I'll just regret some elusive lines like the toothbrush and an end which takes the easy way. But it's minor quibble.Well done Mr. Leconte! You were able to forge ahead in the duo of men with this treasure. Leconte's aficionados in France and abroad, here's another gem for you! And this is one that makes my top ten best movies of 2002.