Lost Bullet (aka Balle perdue)is a French film directed by Guillaume Pierret and starring Alban Lenoir, Nicolas Duvauchelle, and Ramzy Bedia. It came out on Netflix on June 19, 2020. I know I’m a day late with the review, but well, better late than never.
Lost Bullet Review
Lagging pace
Lost Bullet follows Lino, who is a skilled mechanic. A recent convict, he is tasked by the police to do repairs for their police cars. All is fine until one day, Charas, a senior inspector, finds potential in him and decides to give him a second chance. As expected, that doesn’t end well, and after he dies, Lino has to do whatever it takes to prove his innocence.
Lost Bullet tries to go into the depths of the police department and points out that most often, they are their own worst enemy. There are fast cars, chase sequences, dirty cops and some blood in the movie. The plot tries to rush through everything that is going on so that one doesn’t have to dwell too long in one place. Because let’s face it, the plot isn’t deep enough to dwell on for too long.
Lost Bullet wants to pack some punch using its action sequences, without bothering about character development or such. Because let’s face it, that’s what the Fast and the Furious series does, and look how well that has worked out for them, right? However, although some of its chase sequences are fun (the last chase scene), the excitement comes too late for me. The entire first half and most of the second half are boring and drag for me. There isn’t enough happening, or the need doesn’t seem to be serious enough.
Okay, sure. Lost Bullet follows a linear storyline where one action leads to another. But its one-and-a-half-hour runtime tends to get boring with how simplistic the plot is. With hardly any tension in its action sequences, there’s not much that the movie can depend on, honestly.
And character development
The whole of Lost Bullet depends on Lino trying to prove his innocence. But the extremely simplistic storyline doesn’t provide much room for anything else. There’s no background for the characters, except that Lino is a mind-blowing mechanic who has a brother. There’s no background for Charas either, or actually, for anyone else in the movie. And they also don’t have much of an arc either. That’s kinda boring. Sure, you want to play the movie in the background while you do some work? Yeah, that works. But if you’re expecting something more from it, you’ll be quite disappointed.
There’s also a villain in the story who doesn’t seem to be too scary to feel like a threat. Although he tries to be as much of an a-hole as he possibly can.
Moreover, the actors all have a particular way that they react to situations. For example, Lino always has a scowl. In every scene, whatever the situation, the man scowls. Moss always looks pissed, and Julia looks either angry or forlorn. I mean, I get everyone’s in a tough situation, but come on. There must be other feelings that you feel, right?
Summing up
If you’re watching Lost Bullet to pass time and forget it the moment it gets over, good choice. This movie delivers exactly that. There’s not much else, though. And at times it tends to get boring and drag. The chase/action scenes are believable, however, but they tend to get repetitive after a while.
Skip this one if you’re in the mood for something with a bit more story – there are better shows on Netflix.
Lost Bullet is streaming on Netflix right now.
Also Read: Lost Bullet 2 Review: Car Goes Boom