At times it can be hard to distance yourself from preconceived ideas about actors and their potential "influence" on your judgment of a given movie. I have some idiosyncrasies about the two leading actors in this one, and even when I try - I feel that the prejudice is justified.
I "collect" movies, but try to sieve through to the quality ones. One way to get an idea, is to check the company that releases the film or even the packaging as such. This one looked to be from a "serious" company, but that might not always prove the quality of the film. In Europe there seem to be a general soft spot for French and italian movies. And there is at times a lack of critical thinking about what the movies actually gives. Now, I don't want to particularly ditch this movie, it is not a very bad one as such. I just wanted to get this general point of my chest.
A happy family is suddenly turned on its head, when the mother (played by Diane Kruger) is arrested and contained as a suspect in a murder case. At first they hope for justice and her being released and wiped from any accusation, but the evidence seems hard to argue away while we understand that it is highly coincidental and that she is innocent.
Soon the result of the court is in and she is jailed for 20 years. The husband (played by Vincent Lindon), is devastated and feels very helpless. But he rejects being put in a corner, out of choices and abilities to take action on what may be the death nail to his family and his life.
The husband starts to plan how to get her out of the system and immigrate to another country. This is not developed very much, but is portrayed as something that is just natural to engage in. This is the first clue to me that we are dealing with a "Taken" kind of dumb action plot, rather than an emotional journey. As a school teacher, he is not used to be involved with the (free market) criminal world, and he early on ends up with his face kicked in, when looking for fake ID´s in the underworld.
But he keeps going and plasteres his home wall with "plans" on how he want to pull this off. This is such a cliché that it momentarily took me completely out of the movie. And the scriptwriter seem to be at a loss to what to do, so the plan has suddenly to be forced through as the deadline for her transfer to another department is set within a week. A nice little trick to get things going in a pretty lame plot.
I will admit that I was sort of engaged in the thrill of the third act and I was engaged in the idea of him taking everything into his own hands, using violence, at the dispense of the innocent people around him. I decided to just take it as a simple thriller and no more. The whole film lacks the emotional depth of a good story. It settles on tried and proven clichés and only barely scrapes itself through to a decent conclusion.
I have never had a good eye to either Kruger or Lindon. Kruger is the kind of "cheap" movie version of a pretty woman who is able to also deliver basic acting skills. Lindon looks like a clone of Marty Feldman and Bryan Brown, and that does not really get my interest going. He is a weird choice for this part, he looks too old and too uninvolved. When she says "you are so beautiful", it sounds kind of hollow coming from a very beautiful younger looking woman like her and it shows in the lacking chemistry. But more importantly, the emotional journey that he must go through, is hardly evolved at all. It goes into pretty much full on action, leaving interesting aspects like the state's involvement in the destruction of the world and other serious aspects, completely unturned.
The translated title may point it out. In French it is called "Pour Elle" which means "For Her", but the translated title has become "Everything for Her", which is very much more tilted towards "protect women at all costs, just because they are women". And also there is no doubt in his mind that she is innocent. He only has her version of the story, so how can he be so certain? The movie would have been much more interesting if this had been the central story. Another striking line is when she blames him for not telling her of his plan, right after he has put his life on the line in a hugely dangerous kidnapping event. Men are expendable, women complain!
If you want a decently engaging action drama/thriller, that seems more than lightly gynocentric, this might be what you are looking for, but I can hardly see this as neither a guys or a girls movie, if the latter is the most likely one. it is hard for me to recommend this one any circumstances and it comes not recommended.
4/10
