Moles threaten to foil a team of secret agents' plan. From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe… 1-It's a spy movie. 2-It's not a James Bond.<br/><br/>Follow a team of cold-blooded, adrenaline-addicted of french secret agents on what seems to be a "simple" fire and forget mission. <br/><br/>Forget about sub cars, laser pens and kinky secret bases, this one is more about living a spy life, stuck in what smells like a "rainbow warrior" secret op. Frederic Schoendorffer and his crew made an impressive work on showing the pressure upon the characters, their loneliness and the void of their lives. A really clever choice is made whenever it comes to action : what they show us is not another dragon-ballish ballet, but short scenes that just tell that these people know what they're doing. There are lots of details, not the usual visible evidences that lead to colonel Mustard, and the real name of the game is planning. Get all that wrapped in a strong technical treatment (filming, editing and the sound work!) and you've got a movie that's not your usual popcorn spy flick but a real reflexion about what drools in the shadow of politics. As he reached the status of French cinema's »mandarin«, and by proving to be the undisputed commercial ruler of non-American cinema, Luc Besson retired form directing and began writing and producing a whole serial assembly of rather simple French programmers which were set to compete with mid-budget Hollywood efforts. Some of those films like »Taxi« or »Crimson rivers« (Rivieres pourpres) managed to score amazing box office. And yet, Besson's employees failed to deliver anything more than middle-of-the-road of half-baked products. However, each of those titles managed to either reach or surpass Hollywood products in certain set-pieces. Thus, Besson's productions cured European fear of Hollywood's technical supremacy.<br/><br/>The other line of French lust for Hollywood, unlike Besson's superficial clan, is represented by frontmen of the Newest Wave of French Cinema consisted of extremely talented and educated auteurs like Gaspar Noe, Christophe Gans, Jan Kounen and Olivier Assayas who use the rethorics of genre cinema in order to create brave and edgy body of work and blend of art-house.<br/><br/>The acting icons of the Newest Wave are Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, the couple who defined four most important films in the last ten years of French film history Jan Kounen's »Dobermann«, Gilles Mimouni's »L'Appartement«, Christophe Gans' »Pacte de loups" and Gaspar Noe's »Irreversible«. The two of them star in »Agents secrets «, the film which tries to use the fourth method in order to tame the energy of commercial cinema.<br/><br/>The explorer of the Fourth Method is Frederic Schoendoerffer, a classicist among contemporaries, son of famous Pierre (Dien Bien Phu), whose body of work mostly includes documentaries and chronicles of French colonial presence in Indochine. Frederic gained attention by grim and very serious police procedural "Scenes de crimes". In his debut the absence of stars prevented it from being an important title in the Serial Killer Film Pantheon.<br/><br/>»Agents secrets« is a thriller partly inspired by a recent incident when French secret service (DGSE), which belongs among the most discrete, sank the Greenpeace ship. That event caused a backlash and DGSE eventually abandoned some of its' operatives.<br/><br/>In »Agents secrets «, agents are ordered to sink the ship used by the notorious Easteuropean arms dealer. When the ship is sunk, agents consider mission accomplished. Suddenly, it transpires that they provoked CIA by this act and DGSE abandons them.<br/><br/>This exciting yarn is adult-oriented judging by robust pacing and character portraying. Unlike (as exceptional) "The Bourne Supremacy" which grabs the viewer, »Agents secrets « attempt to seduce you. Thus, if "Supremacy" is the model of what 007-franchise should have been, then Schoendoerffer's film threads in legacy of John Mackenzie's "The Fourth Protocol". On the other hand its' Hollywood counterpart is Tony Scott's "Spy Game", another fine film about the dynamics of espionage reality. All of these films were directed by Europeans even if some belong to A-List Hollywood milieu, meaning that Europeans, especially Brits, are the go-to guys when it comes to spy yarns. <br/><br/>»Agents secrets« is a fine espionage thriller that delivers efficient and disciplined roles of two authentic, and probably greatest contemporary French film stars. This film marks the return of adult-minded espionage film where espionage finally became a subject instead of being an excuse for action mayhem. Simply put, in »Agents secrets «, the device is also the goal, and this is why it stands out as a calm and articulated commercial film in the age of hysteria.
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