L'Empereur de Paris

“Vidocq” (Vincent Cassel) is thriving amidst the underworld of Napoleonic France but having been wrongly convicted of murder and escaped from captivity, is keen to go straight and earn an amnesty from the government. That might be possible, but for that to happen he is going to have to co-operate with the embryonic Sûreté and help track down some insurgents. Needless to say, when rumours start to flow that he has turned his coat, the fraternity that was once his safe source of his anonymity now starts to make his life even more dangerous than his new task. Historically, this has it’s roots in an actual man who was instrumental in setting up a French national police force, but as this goes, we are presented with a great looking drama that’s really lacking in depth or characterisation. Save for a few potent appearances from Fabrice Luchini as the cynically duplicitous minister Fouché, the underused but still useful August Diehl’s duplicitous Nathanaël and an enthusiastic effort from James Thiérrée as the dashing, cavalier-like Duc de Neufchâteau it’s all a rather pedestrian affair that seems to imbue Vidocq with a certain degree of implausible immortality. Perhaps it is just simply trying to condense too much history into two hours but we never seem to get to know any of these folk; to get even the most basic understanding of what drove them nor of how precarious the whole French empire was at the time. It also tries too hard to involve us in half-cooked internecine plots that aren’t properly explained or put into context, and so might as well be a few stand alone (and sometimes quite repetitive) episodes of “The Three Musketeers” meets “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Cassel does own the part and the production designers and the armourers have done a great job creating a dark and gritty environment for this history to unfold, but believe it or not it can almost verge on the dull at times. There’s a solid ensemble cast backing things up, but it’s ultimately a bit of a meringue of a story - lots of topping but not much underneath.