Les Traducteurs (The Translators) (M, 105 minutes)
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4 stars
Nine people from various countries - including Russia, Italy, Greece, Denmark and Britain - are locked in a bunker together. Their job is to translate, in a few weeks, a long-awaited French novel into each of their different languages. So hot is the property - the third in a bestselling series by a mysterious, reclusive author - that they are only given a few pages at a time, their mobile phones are confiscated, they have no internet access, and they are under armed surveillance until the job is completed. However, the amenities are impressive.
Despite the tight security, the publisher, Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson) soon receives a text message: the first 10 pages of the book have been leaked online, and unless he pays a hefty sum, more will follow.
Eric has a lot riding on this book. Everyone's a suspect and nobody will be allowed out until the mystery is solved - and some basic necessities (food, water, light) might be withdrawn until that happens.
That's the setup for the French mystery thriller The Translators (it's subtitled so its title in English will do).
When you encounter a film of this kind, if it's engaging, you mostly try to suspend disbelief, keep up with the various twists and turns - and, here, switches in time and location - and figure out what's happening. The Translators is a film where the plot and its intricacies are what really matter so it's not surprising characterisation is sketchy, with some of the translators and other characters having more to do than others.
The cast is impressive. Wilson is reminiscent of Ralph Fiennes, a bit chilly and sinister, and good turns come from, among others, British skateboarder Alex (Alex Lawther), stuttering Spaniard Javier (Edourado Noriega) and punkish Portuguese Telma (Naria Leite). The translators interact well, whether bonding through talk and song or casting aspersions and accusations.
Director (and co-writer) Régis Roinsard does an effective job juggling everything although There are occasional slow patches and what Alfred Hitchcock called "fridge logic" - questions about plausibility that occur after viewing (like when you've arrived home and are staring into the fridge). I guessed some, but by no means all, of the twists and came out having had a good time.
There's some labouring of a message about how bad it is that literature is packaged and sold like any other commercial product.
However, the novel at the heart of things, from what we learn about it, doesn't sound like it is some classic like the work of Marcel Proust (whose In Search of Lost Time plays a part) and this is, after all, a slick commercial entertainment.
A good mystery thriller is always welcome. This isn't a deep and meaningful film, but it's fine entertainment.