From director Olivier Assayas comes this erotic thriller starring Asia Argento as Sandra, a former prostitute, and Michael Madsen as Miles, her onetime pimp-turned-high-powered businessman. Brought back together after a separation, Sandra and Miles are reunited when Sandra returns to Paris after an extended absence. Despite the fact that neither of the two former lovers are the same people they were back in the day, their kinky sexual relationship is nonetheless rekindled. It seems that some
time long ago, financial promises were made before some misdeed drove the pair apart. Meanwhile, Sandra has made it her mission to open a Beijing nightclub, and Miles is about to sell off his business to Singapore interests. Miles couldn't care less about Sandra's dreams of owning a nightclub, but now that his divorce has been finalized he's eager to resume their steamy relationship. Tempted by Miles' money but financially comfortable thanks to her work with an import company run by shady couple Lester (Carl Ng) and Sue Wang (Kelly Lin), Sandra secretly pulls down some extra income by moving drugs through the married couple's highly profitable company. Before long, sexual intrigue and a botched drug deal combine to complicate matters for all involved. Boarding Gate screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
The main thing interesting about Boarding Gate is the spectacle of Assayas' effort -- the attitude and the international backdrop -- not the story itself.
Even an ultra-feral performance by Asia Argento -- the art house Angelina Jolie -- isn't enough to suffer through Boarding Gate, a draggy and incoherent thriller by French director Oliver Assayas.
In the "B" movie days, a story like this would shoot by in about 70 minutes without time to pick holes in the motives. But Assayas takes a bloated, boring 106 minutes.
Like just about everything in Boarding Gate, the finale suggests that its creators have been watching too many other movies with similar premises and payoffs.
[Assayas] has concocted a plot that is dizzying and annoying at times, and it's hard to care about the characters in the shifting story. But B-movie veteran Argento's portrayal of Sandra is like watching a car careening down an incline.
Writer-director Olivier Assayas must have been working out some personal demons to make something as embarrassing as Boarding Gate, the most trite and trivial piece of sleaze since Abel Ferrara's Snake Eyes.
There are long, droning bouts of dialog about nothing meant to link scenes together, but all Boarding Gate really does is fixate on watching Asia Argento do stuff.
Seriously flawed and not for every taste, the film was shot quickly and on the cheap, and is driven by Argento's slurred, scratchy voice and Bette David eyes.
At firt i didnt wanna see this, i wasnt interested in this at all and i should have stuck to that because this movie is extremely shit! i gave it 1 and half stars just because there was a shooting and murders that made it a little bit interesting but the rest shit!
The sotryline is shit and so shit that even at the end
your wondering what the hell that movie is about !
not worth the time ir effect crap!!
October 10, 2008
Film Crazy
Super Reviewer
Meandering thriller with much style but little substance. Argento may have a smouldering beauty but her acting leaves much to be desired and Madsen is unconvincing.
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