Anthony Zimmer

Plot synopsis:
Anthony Zimmer is a genius career criminal wanted by police around the world. He has used ingenious methods to launder money legally, using dummy corporations that file lawsuits against firms outside France. Zimmer is also being pursued by the "White Collar Barons"—a powerful Russian mafia with whom he once did business. Zimmer is an elusive character, however, with no known description of his appearance following his recent plastic surgery. One standout detective named Akerman is getting close to catching the criminal mastermind; he knows that Zimmer will risk everything to reunite with the lover he left behind, Chiara Manzoni, who has not seen him since his plastic surgery.
Anticipating a reunion with Zimmer, Chiara arrives at a restaurant, where she receives a message from her boyfriend, telling her to "pick up" a stranger whose general appearance matches his own in order to mislead his pursuers. Chiara boards a TGV high-speed train and chooses François Taillandier, a bland 38-year-old translator who reads detective novels and whose wife left him over six months ago. Fascinated by this beautiful mysterious woman, François has difficulty concentrating on his yogurt and reading. When they arrive at Cannes, Chiara invites François to stay over with her at the Carlton Hotel. She also gives him a watch that bears Zimmer's name on the back.
The next morning, François wakes up alone and finds himself the target of two hitmen. He frantically escapes and seeks shelter at a nearby police station. There, he befriends Lt. Camel Driss, who provides him with clothes and a room at a nearby hospital. They discover that Chiara checked out of the Carlton Hotel that day. Driss believes François' story after seeing a bullet hole in the hotel room, which is now occupied by members of the White Collar Barons and their leader, Nassaiev. Later that night, Driss is murdered.
When he sees Nassaiev and his goons outside his room, François escapes and unexpectedly reunites with Chiara, who takes him to a secret hideout in Nice. There, she explains that she set him up because he matches Zimmer's build, and she tells him to stay in the hideout for a few days. The next day, however, François leaves the hideout and stalks her outside the Hotel Negresco, hoping to get more answers from her. Soon François is nabbed by the police and interrogated by Akerman, who reveals to him that Chiara is in fact an undercover DGDDI agent. That night, Akerman secretly meets up with Chiara to discuss the rendezvous Zimmer proposed in a classified ad. Akerman tells her that while she will be at the rendezvous point, he will keep an eye on François.
With François in custody, Akerman and his men park their surveillance truck and post their snipers within the vicinity of the rendezvous point: Zimmer's old mansion. Chiara enters the mansion and confronts the White Collar Barons and Nassaiev, who threatens to kill her if Zimmer does not arrive within five minutes. François leaves the truck and rushes into the mansion to save her, but is immediately placed on the ground at gunpoint by Nassaiev's men. After Nassaiev rejects her claims that François is not Zimmer, Chiara gives the signal and the snipers shoot down the Russian mobsters.
As the police remove the Russian bodies from the scene, François reveals to Chiara that he is, in fact, Anthony Zimmer. She tells him to flee, but Zimmer refuses, even though he knows Chiara is an agent. He opens a secret safe and takes out a notebook filled with his banking information, and leaves it by the front door for Akerman—his way of giving up his life of crime for the woman he loves. Knowing what he's given up for her, Chiara decides not to reveal his true identity to the police, and the two drive away together.

Tags: romantic, flashback

Review:
Things Are not How They Seem to Be. In Paris, the international police force and the Russian mafia are chasing Anthony Zimmer, an intelligent man responsible for laundry of dirty money in France.
The only means to reach Zimmer is through his beloved mistress Chiara (Sophie Marceau), who is under surveillance of the police and the mobsters.
While traveling by train to the country nearby Nice, the common man François Taillandier (Yvan Attal), who has the same body shape of Zimmer, is select by Chiara as if he were Zimmer and used as a bait to lure those that are pursuing her.
When Taillandier is chased by the professional Russian killers, he runs the French police when the real situation begins to be disclosed to him."Anthony Zimmer" is a great thriller, with a situation that recalls Hitchcock's classic "North By Northwest", i.e., a man mistaken for another and pursued by criminals.
The attractive story has many twists, a nice cast with the gorgeous Sophie Marceau and the efficient Yvan Attal in the lead roles.
Scenes you have seen a thousand times, this movie makes you see them with new eyes: a guy killing time watching TV, a car chase in an underground parking lot, or someone having coffee and reading the paper in the morning sun.
The final plot twist may not be up to common standards of plausibility, but it doesn't subtract from 90 minutes spent in silent wonder at what the French can do with a little sunshine and lot of mascara..
The most important things in a movie like this are to have a plot that twists and turns but remains at least semi-plausible, to have a reasonably attractive hero, a super-sexy femme fatale and appropriately menacing villains, and above all to keep up the pace no matter what.
Throw in the bonus of lots of the high life -- the mountain-top super-house, the suite at the Carlton in Nice and all the rest -- and the extra bonus of a happy ending (I don't think that's a spoiler) and you make a very enjoyable evening out.Don't bother trying to work out later how all the bits fitted together.
I don't think this film made a big splash at the box office or earned much critical acclaim, which is a shame.In my view, its fascinating scenery, the many twists and turns, a fabulous Sophie Marceau, and not least a clever ending, make this pure entertainment to watch and would have deserved better.The film does remind me of Hitchcock at his best.Not all the pieces may fit together all the time, but I don't find this to be an issue with this movie.
This is an engaging and quite clever thriller, produced, directed and acted as only the French do: stylish, cool, suave  and with a twist.
Zimmer, however, has recently acquired a new face via plastic surgery; so nobody knows what he looks like now.He has a weakness, however: the femme fatale who, in this case, is Chiara (Sophie Marceau), who keeps in touch with Zimmer via classified messages in the Herald-Tribune.
Because Zimmer wants an available sap to act as stand-in when the mafia make their hit...Enter poor Francois Taillandier (Yvan Attal), minding his own business on the train when the gorgeous Chiara sets down opposite and, very adroitly, gets Francois to join her in her travels to the Cote d'Azur and a luxurious holiday he thinks.
Francois figures he's maybe in heaven for the first day, a wonderful dinner, followed by the potential for real romance.And then, the sky falls in...In short order, Francois is running for his life (almost like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man [1976] and for similar reasons) as the mafia try twice to kill him, Chiara reveals that she set him up, the mafia keep on trying to make a hit on him, the police try to help him, and Zimmer's still pulling the strings it seems.
Things are closing in on Francois, and it seems like only a matter of time before he takes a hit.Not everything is as it seems, however...To say more would spoil this film for you.
The cinematography is exquisite on the French coastline, the sound track is good, the acting is...oh, who cares...I was too busy looking at Sophie Marceau anyway.
Anthony Zimmer has disappeared with his ill-gotten riches, to change his looks and his voice with plastic surgery to escape the French customs police and a Russian mafia gang.
One nuance of note: the customs police chief becomes fully aware at the end of what the viewer finds out.A great film in all ways - superb acting, pacing, plot, scenery, and background music - all integrated in a very involving film.
The Tourist is not all that bad, perhaps even above average, but Anthony Zimmer is much better..
I found this movie a bit slow paced in many places, sometimes unnecessary so.However that being said, I have noticed that the major part of the plot has already been given away in the first 20 minutes of the film.
As usual, she portrays a woman who is coldly sexy, turning to a hot object of desire in several scenes.The plot of the movie is relatively simple, and its length is a bit too short.
As so many have said before me Sophie Marceau is very,very good in Anthony Zimmer but , for me, Yvan Attal was the standout.
I have liked his somewhat deadpan style since "Les Patriots" (still one of my favorite thrillers) and here, as the 'ordinary' guy supposedly caught up in things beyond his knowledge he plays a much more realistic Cary Grant type than you would usually see in a Hitchcock movie.
That's part of the fun of films like Anthony Zimmer.
Anthony Zimmer (2005)Ah, this has its moments, but it sure is overly clever and at times overly derivative.
The interactions and scenario of an elite crook and some undercover and suspicious types on the boundaries of the big hunt for him are taken straight from a lot of previous movies--even from "North by Northwest," of all things, which you'll catch in the train conversation and in the general nature of the leading woman in both cases.
It's all well enough done to keep you watching if this is your kind of movie, and I didn't mind traipsing along even as it seemed to bowl into a lot of old tricks.What was worse, overall, was the dependence on a huge trick, one that you might or might not anticipate, and which comes along at the very end like a splotch of ketchup on your plate.
Yeah, yeah, we were warned the escapee was a master of disguise and had had a lot of plastic surgery, but still, it's just not enough, not enough.Everything is set in the south of France, Nice to be exact, and is pretty and fun (like a lot of other movies set there).
The movie itself is French, of course, and in one nice scene a man starts to ask a question in English, and another man (one of the chief cops, we suppose) says, "I don't speak in English," or something to that effect.
(A lot of French films in particular use a bit of English--or a lot--to do more than just sound international.)But I find an interesting nuance mostly because the movie is otherwise a very straightforward affair.
Director Jerome Salle wanted this film to remind us Hitchcock's or Polanski's movies with the next door guy type getting caught into a web of mistaken identity.
He actually tries more with a story which may have had a better chance if it decided whether it wants to play on the thriller or on the romantic movie line.
We are left with a well acted film with Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal leading a good team of actors, but also with a feeling of in-satisfaction because despite the good ideas the film ends by looking too short and too superficial to give us time to be thrilled or to be moved..
If you like films such as North by Northwest and The Thomas Crown Affair, you are bound to be intrigued by Anthony Zimmer.Sophie Marceau plays her part as femme fatale with a perfect mix of Eva Marie Saint's Artemisian aloofness and Rene Russo's no-nonsense sensuality, and it is a pleasure to watch her interaction with Yvan Attal throughout the film.
Too bad so few Anglo-Saxon writers/directors respect those basic rules.Bottom line: If you rent Anthony Zimmer, you won't need a back-up film.
Like in every other mystery identity movie, once you know you the bad guy really is, you tend to rewind the whole film in your memory and see if the whole thing is coherent.
And, everything being said and done, it's always a treat to watch Sophie Marceau act, though she somehow manages mostly to get involved in projects that don't match her talent..
A guy-next-door type translator (NOT "interpreter", mind you) (Yvan Attal) recently "ditched" (I took this from the sub-title in the version I saw) is on a train going to a seaside resort to enjoy a quiet vacation by himself when an enchanting woman (Sophie Marceau) sits opposite him and asks him to help her with the stuck zippers on her cardigan.
Anthony Zimmer involves a crime mystery and a romance.The silly plot (and the even sillier plot twist) is there merely to provide a platform for Marceau and Attal to act, and does not worth talking about.
Marceau can play the role of the beautiful enigmatic women without even trying and Attal delivers the persona of an all-too- familiar absolutely ordinary guy caught in a whirlwind of unsought excitement to perfection.
I'm not saying that it's a bad flick: the actors are a pleasure to watch, particularly the absolutely stunning Sophie Marceau (and this is coming from a straight girl).
I don't find the plot "silly" twisted, and not only providing a platform for the two actors to act.In fact, this movie goes far beyond the easy crap usually sold.
This movie deals with one aspect of what life is for some people in the world: an uneasy understandable manipulation of individuals by other individuals.I'm sorry for the guy who did put the previous comment but I just feel that he should read more books, or maybe go back to school and learn to think "out of the box" before he puts unadequate comments that are to viewers, to the director and to the actors a real insult.Stratege thinker Sun Zi said 2500 years ago : an country without spy is like a blind army.
Salle teases us in several ways; showing a female hand - her back is to us - selecting and lighting a cigarette in close up, then more feet as she walks the length of a platform before finally boarding a train and walking past several empty seats to select a place opposite Yvan Attal - whom we might be forgiven for assuming is the eponymous Zimmer - and even then her eyes are hidden behind dark glasses.
I watched this film (which came as add-on to German magazine ComputerBild) last night, in high anticipation for Sophie Marceau.
In the end, I felt a bit disappointed - slightly giddy by the twisty plot, and I had waited for Marceau's strong acting (as seen in Marquise) in vain.Then I read the comments here, and was thinking what I would write in a comment, and became unsure.
You could call such things red herrings, but they certainly worked very well for me.I'll certainly watch "Anthony Zimmer" again - with all its quotes of Hitchcock (the mansion on the hill, and many more) it can stand up well on its own, and be enjoyed even though one knows how it ends, like a true classic.
I decided to watch the movie entirely for Sophie Marceau but Yvan Attal was surprisingly good.
The scene which forms the crux of the movie ought to have been done with more finesse that is Anthony Zimmer being revealed.
Sophie Marceau looks as beautiful as ever in the movie.
Watch this movie for good story telling and a very believable setting..
Both revolve around a geeky main character, out of their depth in a dangerous world, rescued and in love with a cool good looking action capable femme fatal (Sophie Marceu/Lucy Liu)..who has the answers....and is also in love with them.In the end, despite both of them being geeky *very* everyman characters, their geek personas are in fact a disguise, they are actually the so far unseen central anti hero character (Anthony Zimmer/Sebastian Brooks) of the movie, a very secretive and highly capable independent agent, who's face has never been seem (except by the female central character).In both films, two bad guy organisations (Russian Mafi and French Police/Sunway Corp Digicorp) are chasing after him, however don't know what he looks like.In the end, the bad guy organisations are outsmarted, and the Zimmer/Brooks character escapes with the girl...the only people to witness his face are killed.
Both movies even finish off with the respective couples traveling off into the sunset together.Anthony Zimmer is stylish in a typical French way, but Cypher itself is quite stylish and the original and the cleverer of the two.
The Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp starrer was an entertaining film...one of the things which prevented it from being great though, was that it could never make up its mind as to whether it was a suspense thriller, an action thriller or a comedy.
But I'm pleased to say that the French original 'Anthony Zimmer' has no such identity crisis.The plot of 'Zimmer' is very simple and in retrospect I can't but help feel that 'The Tourist' sometimes needlessly embellished (and in the process, complicated) the story.
Some things the viewer needs to put together himself while watching the film.
Case in point, Chiara's (Sophie Marceau) motivation in befriending Francoise Tallandier (Yven Attal) as part of her scheme to fool Anthony Zimmer's pursuers is something which one has to assume based on the action on-screen and other subtle hints-its only explicitly spelled out more than halfway through the film (whereas in 'The Tourist', its made glaringly clear to us pretty much from the start).A major superficial difference between the two versions is to do with the style and grandeur of the remake, which is contrasted by the relative simplicity of the original.
The lack of emphasis on set designs and scenic beauty reinforces the film's prime focus on the character's and their story and also serves to give the film a much more 'serious' feel as opposed to the flamboyance of the remake.Special mention must be made of the lead actor Yven Attal.
Sophie Marceau's 'Chiara' is likewise a VERY different character from Angelina Jolie's 'Elise Ward'...unlike the glamorous and enigmatically playful Elise, Chiara is a much harsher individual, though she does reveal a softer side as the story progresses.On the whole, I feel 'Anthony Zimmer' is a much more serious, and tighter film, than the remake, though I will always remain a fan of the comically thrilling Depp-Jolie starrer as well!.
Anthony Zimmer is an average suspension movie, but if you have seen Cypher (http://imdb.com/title/tt0284978), you know how the movie is going to unwind from the first five minutes on.
The story is very similar (not to say, in some parts identical), although in Cypher, the main character actually "deleted" his memory, so the entire "Who's the guy?" game actually makes sense.As has been mentioned elsewhere, even when alone, Zimmer doesn't act like himself, and it doesn't really make sense why, unless to lead on the viewer.
The characters remain flat and two-dimensional (even the main character...), and the final twist just doesn't come off right (especially since most viewers will have the identity shuffle figured out by now).If you haven't seen Cypher, maybe this movie works for you.
It gets an average rating for the nice camera work and Sophie Marceau, but I'm sad to say it would probably have scored higher if the producers had directly copied Cypher..
"Anthony Zimmer" is a conventional romantic thriller and con movie which finds a gang of Russian criminals and law enforcement agents frantically attempting to apprehend master criminal Anthony Zimmer.The film was directed by Jerome Salle, whose style is unimaginative and at times dull.
The only thing Salle's film has over Donnersmarck's is the presence of the always stunning Sophia Marceau.
I had forgotten I wanted to see this film, and while I thought The Tourist has it's good points, that class is awesome, I only wish I knew it was really a remake of Anthony Zimmer.
Sophie is a different story, but they sure know how to photograph her.I like the rawness of AZ.
Beautifully filmed (great aerial shots) and well acted especially by Yvan Attal who was just superb in the role of a nerdy mystery reading accountant type.
Also the story is not perfect her role is not completely logical but this is a minor thing...There are twists and the final one makes the movie work.
In US films the bad guys mostly don't get away with it--you have to go to more cynical European creations to get the ending you want.
Motivitations are at the core of such movies, and since some things we take for granted can lead us down the wrong path, and like a chess player having read several moves ahead, one must backtrack and start over.Ms. Marceau surprised me - I knew her to be very pretty, but in this movie she adds a new twist.
Mr. Attal is also very good - I'm not sure how easy/difficult it is to portray this - but I was hooked from the get-go.### It's one of those movies that makes you feel very intensely, even if you can question the motives (i.e. you know that if a "femme-fatale" hits on a plain looking guy, she wants something).