PUBLIC MARKS from alamat with tags cinema & thriller

A revisit of 2003 French erotic thriller “Nathalie…” with European cinema greats Emmanuelle Beart as the irresistible whore while Fanny Ardant and Gerard Depardieu play the embattled married couple, “Chloe” is a low-intensity Hollywood addition that will benefit from its array of A-listers and the intrigue of its decorated director Atom Egoyan (who has been shooting dark dramas since “Sweet Hereafter” in 1997) but ultimately falters because it cannot replicate the controlled explosiveness and the European sophistication in the original, leading us to question its character arcs.

If you’re wondering why this Robert Rodriquez re-update feels so close to home with the two “Predator” movies in 1987 and 1990 when you were expecting it to be another colossal CGI bore in the vein of say, “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), that’s because it’s based on ideas that the “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996) and “Sin City” (2005) director developed more than 15 years ago after watching the originals. Ignoring the events in all the “AVP” spawns, the man commissions the able hands of Nimród Antal (“Kontrol” 2003, “Vacancy” 2007) to direct a largely satisfying picture that is dirtier, edgier and less pretentious than one would’ve thought