Midweek Mention... The Emperor of Paris

The Emperor of Paris

Sidey: The Emperor of Paris?

Cris: We should I say, shall I say we, we,

Dan: we

Sidey: 2018 joint? It's French language.

Cris: Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: Bon

Sidey: Olga. Lenko is in this as well? Yes.

Cris: Yeah, she is. Yes. And there's quite a few actors. If, if anyone has watched any French movies like we did the Three Musketeers, this is filled with actors that were in the Three Musketeers as

Dan: Okay. Right.

Cris: Which I recognize. I don't remember the names,

Dan: world.

Sidey: France.

Mm-hmm.

Cris: Fran, what it starts with a, with a kind of a tale of Napoleon, right?

Sidey: It gives you some text. Speak about where we are. Historically, it's the Napoleonic area. Right.

Dan: area.

Cris: Born Apart.

Dan: how I say it.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: What's that?

When's that? Like the 15, 18, 5.

Sidey: I think. Set.

Cris: 18. Beginning of 1801 or 1805.

Sidey: I think

Dan: I was just a boy

Cris: It's a young lad.

Sidey: And it starts off with rat garko [00:01:00] favorite emoji. And it squashed and immediately thought. I think that's a real rat they've just killed on the screen. It

Cris: looks very real.

Yeah.

Sidey: It's feasting on some sort of morsel.

And then what we see is Vincent Elle's character. Vidoc Vidoc, his name, his first name's Eugene,

Cris: No. Francois

Sidey: No LY says Eugene.

Cris: Fran Dock.

They keeps calling him Fran

Sidey: Eugene. Francois Vidoc. Because I read that and I thought Eugene is definitely the worst name in the history of mankind.

Anyway he's been captured and he what we find out about him is that he is a master of escapology.

Reegs: Oh,

Dan: Oh, nice.

Cris: Yeah.

Sidey: he throughout the film and prior to where we meet him, he's escaped from something like 26 different. Yeah.

Dan: Like that.

Sidey: And he's, but he, like, he's given an almighty thrashing, like we meet him, thrown down the stairs where this rat was and then like fucking, like beaten with just batons.

And on the floor, he is got, his nose is broken, his face is all smashed up and they. Chuck him down. I [00:02:00] train him to his bed and he goes into his mouth and he is got this,

Dan: I was gonna ask, what, what's his thing? Is he double jointed or is he kind of, he's got a pin stuck somewhere so he can pick locks.

Sidey: can do that. Yeah. So he's he's well versed in getting out of sticky situations

Cris: and this is a galley.

It, it's a and, and

Dan: lots of paintings up and everything.

Cris: Yes, exactly

Sidey: Yeah. They'll laugh at him, don't they? When he, when he is introduced. Yeah. All the, all the other guys, they're like,

Cris: Yeah. Yeah. The Mighty V Doc. Oh, you're

Sidey: here. Yeah. He is known. They know

Cris: And the, the person that's in charge of the prisoners, he himself is a prisoner, but he's name is Mayad or Mayad.

And

Dan: Mayad.

Cris: yeah, he's he's got his freedom, but he's in charge of all the other prisoners.

Dan: Ah,

he's one of them. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

So people get, there's a, a way to, you can make deals to free yourself to get sort of,

Dan: a deal can be done.

Sidey: And that's gonna happen to vidoc.

Cris: Yeah.

Dan: [00:03:00] Mark

Cris: because his, bed.

The, the bed, the guy in the bed next to him, he's like, you're already a hated man in here. Nobody wants someone with a reputation like you. And that guy runs the show here and he's already after you. So he's been warned by the, the, the

Dan: he's got a mark on

Sidey: because, yeah. There's no honor amongst thieves like this guy, he will sell you out to get a deal or to get some sort of leverage or any sort of advantage he can get. He doesn't give a fuck.

Like he will just sell you out. If, so that then, and all the people that he's like shackled up with here, they know that. So,

Cris: and then they kind of have a, like a fight. like in prison fight basically. This guy has the freedom to do his own rules in, in the galley inside the, the thing.

And he's like, oh, you've got, they've got fight and it's sticks with blades at the end.

And yeah, and, and whoever gets, well, it's basically the fight to the death in this case. But while this is happening, [00:04:00] the mayor takes bets and Vidoc is on his bed trying to file the the shackles and. Before that

Sidey: they find, they find someone else that's done it like, or escape that's been trying to escape and he's just thrown overboard.

Yeah.

Cris: Yeah. He's thrown overboard, but they, he's also. Helped because there's, while he's on the bed, someone's trying to shank him. But our man,

Reegs: Eugene,

Cris: no, the other guy. There's, there's a partner. I can't remember his

Dan: Well, I'm thinking though, if he's gonna escape, where's he going to?

Cris: he, he's on a boat, but the, the other, what's the other prisoner's name? He's got a, like a really?

Yes. The dea. Yeah.

Sidey: Nathaniel

Cris: Nathaniel DEA warns him. He's like, ah, I, I, I've got a plan to escape as well. I know what you're doing. He's like, be careful there's someone coming for you. And then while he's trying to, to file his shackles, someone does come behind him, he doesn't hear [00:05:00] it, but not.

Saves our hero

Reegs: Oh, so Venga did see it

Cris: Yeah, he did see it. And he does. Yeah, exactly. And he does save him. And then after the, the saving bit, vid dog goes to where the fight happens to see Mayad and he, he kind of looks at him and it goes and spits in his face.

Sidey: Yeah,

Cris: Like a proper spit as well.

Like a

Sidey: really gobs in his face. Yeah, it was awful.

Dan: So we've killed a rat and there's a proper gob in the

Cris: Yeah.

Dan: How far are we in? Like 20 minutes into

Sidey: to be fair, we are in France, so

Cris: 15, 20 minutes. Yeah, exactly. And then Mayad gets really upset, calls the guards on, they start a fight with all the prisoners and that, and the vanger sticks up for the doc again. Then they both get thrown overboard with chains and missile or, what do you call it?

The, the bowl?

Sidey: Cannonball.

Canonball. Cannonball.

Cris: Cannonball can, yeah, Cannonball on their, on their, attached to their feet.

Reegs: Oh, blind me. Yeah. So, [00:06:00] but that's the sort of thing that it's handy to be an Es anthropologist.

Cris: exactly.

Because we talk. Frees himself. Mm. But he does see the vanger sinking,

Reegs: and does he free vengo.

Cris: out. And in an absolute active miracle, he slaps him on the, he unshackle him, slaps him on the water, and the guy just,

anymore. Comes back to life after a slap on

Reegs: the, doesn't immediately try and take a lung full of air.

Cris: No. exactly. And and, and they, you kind of just see them escape in the

Dan: just be the shock

Cris: shock underwater. And then it says a few years later.

Sidey: Yeah. So what's gonna happen is he's not gonna end up in prison.

Reegs: He's on the lamb.

Sidey: there's a guy who sort of sits in this ivory tower, isn't it? He makes all the deals. He is in control of everything.

I wasn't exactly sure what his specific title was but he offers BOC a chance, like right. You're gonna go to jail, unless you now work for us. You work for the government, you're gonna be a spy. You're gonna infiltrate the [00:07:00] underground and you're gonna give us all the intel on who the fucking crims are working around the place.

Cris: same time, he's looking for favors from Olga KO's character.

Sidey: She's

Cris: Baroness of something. And she is, she

Dan: a bond girl

Reegs: once.

Yeah, I, I know. Yeah,

Sidey: Quantum S Yeah.

Cris: and also she's Ukrainian, but she speaks

Sidey: really

I was amazed at French, her accent, everything,

Cris: Yeah. It's like really, really good French.

Dan: bond.

Your

Cris: and, and we find, get to find out later that she's. We get found out later that she's a former prostitute who

Sidey: aren't. We all

Cris: worked her way up to the state of, of Baroness, and she is connected. She's

Reegs: how did she work her way up from sucking CO to Baroness.

Cris: The same way TikTok and influences work their way

Sidey: sleep with the right people.

Reegs: All right. Okay. Really?

Sidey: you can make that. You can make that happen.

Cris: that's kind of on, on the side of, of, I think he's the, the guy that he [00:08:00] actually sees is the head of the police. Yeah. Like the head of the police. And he sees the a shelf and he's got the shelf full of folders with unsolved wanted people. And there's the, the solved shelf who has one file.

The unsolved has, I dunno, 38 or something like that. And he's like, vidoc is like this guy, he's been to prison, he's done that. He's got a missing year, chewed by a rat. This guy, I know everyone, I'll help you, but I want amnesty. Okay? And whoever works with me, I.

I want them to have amnesty as

Reegs: Is that where Venga ISS gonna turn up then? Is it

Cris: Not yet because he teams up with a prostitute.

Sidey: Yeah. It gets a love

Cris: Yeah.

Who is, she's quite fit as well. She's

Reegs: was basically pretty much one of your only options, wasn't it, to be a prostitute back in those days?

Cris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, she's also a thief. She's not just a pro.

She's Annette. Annette, yeah.

Sidey: Curtain. Yeah.

Cris: Very, very pretty [00:09:00] freckles and everything.

Sidey: Yeah. She's lovely.

Reegs: So what, but what, and is he gonna just rescue her from her life of blah or?

Sidey: They, yeah, they're gonna have it, it gives it, it adds an element of jeopardy because. Whilst he, so he, he's a bit like Sherlock and he's got, he's quite a good at disguises as well, so he can get into things. He can infiltrate gangs and, and give his into a back. But there are still people that know who he is.

He's got a level of infamy that there are people who know and you know, one way. Exactly. And one way to get at him is maybe to go after his misses.

Reegs: yeah, yeah.

Cris: Which at one point does happen, but there's a, a bit of a, how do you call that in English?

Like an interlude or when they, he, they show the, the ca the shelf growing with the files of people he

Sidey: arrested.

Oh, montage. Montage

Cris: of, of people that they arrest with the help of a dock or through the dock

or

Reegs: the 37 unsolved cases.

Cris: And he, which is all these. People of the underworld. At the same time, [00:10:00] he's got a, a, a, a guy that used to be a baron, but he's just a, a, a swordman in the Napoleon's army, his old mate from prison.

And Annette a

Dan: a band

Cris: as a, as a little bit of a, a, a band. And they kind of solve all these crimes. They, they catch all these people, they put them all in prison, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dan: So this is nothing to do with Napoleon really

Sidey: No, no. You did see him once at the very, very end. Yeah.

Cris: The end. Yeah. But all throughout this case, he, throughout this montage, the, the help that he gives to the police chief is, is more and more important, but he's also trying to get to the leader of the gang,

Sidey: Yeah. There's a, there's a Maria figure

Cris: is mayad the same guy that he had as a

in prison

Sidey: isn't it?

They dunno who it is. It's the phantom. Yeah. Until he is able to figure it out. Yeah. And his motivation, like he doesn't really give a fuck about solving these crimes other than it is good for him. Like he, he's not got some sort of ethical, [00:11:00] oh, we need to crack this case. It's

Dan: and it, is it kind of a, a, a dark ari thing going on here or

Reegs: what's it visually like? Yeah, I was

Sidey: I This

Cris: mostly, it's in the dark

Sidey: It's, it's sort

Cris: darkly filmed

Sidey: of the. What, what I thought was that the period look of it was spot on. I really thought it had an authenticity to the way it looked, that it was really, really good. The costume design, the set, everything looked fucking bang on, all

Cris: They all looked dirty as well.

Sidey: Yeah.

Yeah. And he, he sort of looks like really dirty and grubby at the start. And then he gets a bit, you know, his clubber gets better as he sort of, you know, climbs up the, the ladder. I thought that was probably the most impressive thing of it for me. And also what I did like, 'cause there's quite a lot of violence in it.

They have some fucking serious marksmen in this, by the way. 'cause they've got the old Flint

Cris: the one shot.

Reegs: One

Sidey: They never fucking miss. Yeah. Never.

Dan: Which is a rarity. 'cause normally they always

Sidey: Yeah. And they're not the most accurate things in the world either. But there are, there's quite a lot of sort of hand to hand fighting.

And I thought the fight choreography was really good. That, that had a, a good level of authenticity, I thought to people getting wounded and. [00:12:00] You know, carrying on. But you could see there were, it was affected them and all that. 'Cause it does culminate with who's the guy, the guy with the mustache?

Cris: The kind of the fallen noble Yeah.

Who had loads of land, but because Napoleon, when he took over as an emperor, he, I dunno how

Sidey: land grab.

Cris: Yeah. He, he, he took land from all these former that were Ian, Don, or they were with other

Political interests. And he took land from all these barons and counts and royalties or whatever. So his family had a bad name and a bad reputation, which he tried to, and this was his friend.

now

that,

that's the guy with a sword,

Sidey: with mustache. Yeah. He was really cool.

He goes, he goes into battle basically for vidoc in 'cause when we get to the end, it's, they've, they've gone after his misses.

It's all like, it is all closing in on him. They need to get rid of him and they know who he is. They know he's an, he is like, he's working for the feds, but they know he's an imposter. Really? He's a fucking crook as well. They want shot of him. So [00:13:00] there's a, there's a kind of,

The guy with the sword, I forget his name, but he's kind of isolated and he's going after some people and he takes stab one person, but then he gets stabbed and then it will cut to Vidoc and they're fighting chasing after the Phantom guy.

And it'll go back to the guy with sword and he's got another guy. He's then has, he's got like two guys to take on, which he. He sort of slits one threat, you know? And it is quite good. It just gives you a different perspective on the fight. You never getting bogged down. And it's quite, you know, the action's quite visceral.

And he stabs a few, and in the end he gets, he's just wounded and more wounded and more wounded. And there's another guy comes at him who stabs him. And he is a goner. He knows he's a goner. So the guy's got his, I think he's trying to strangle him or something, and he just gets his own sword and just fucking stabs himself.

But gets in like, like a kebab, like a kebab, just skewers the other guy on his sword and they both just die. And then you got the big fight with

Dan: it's a big

Cris: Yeah, we, we did skip through a little bit where Mayad, his former guy from

Reegs: the prison.

Cris: From the prison, he, in the [00:14:00] end gets killed, but he gets killed by the Vanger. Yeah. And the Vanger turns out to, turns out to be. The other gang leader in the Paris Underworld, and he tries to, to shake hands with the dog.

He tries to be his ally. And again, the dog goes, I told you this before, when we were on the boat, I work alone. And then he's like, we can be the emperors of Paris. That's the only time when they actually say it.

Reegs: Title drop

Cris: and, and, yeah, exactly. And then VOC is like, well, there can only be only one. And meanwhile all this is happening while he was meant to get amnesty at this party where the chief of the police get the Legion of Honor or something like that, the medal, he gets informed by the State Secretary of Justice that.

He's just a pawn.

Dan: He's never gonna

Cris: get

You are, you are, you are gonna be in limbo between amnesty and, and not,

Reegs: you're not, you're neither gonna be legitimate nor a member of the

Cris: be in the shadows and you are gonna work for us because basically what they say is [00:15:00] without showing so many words, the only way you're valuable to us is, is if you don't get

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cris: Which

Sidey: Yeah. And he goes to see the guy,

Dan: always wanna be able to wash our hands of you.

It

Sidey: He goes

to see the head guy. I promised him and he goes, nah,

Cris: no, that's not,

Reegs: the guy makes all of the, the decisions

Sidey: ivory tower,

Cris: At the same time after they, they, they kill Maya. They then, then they go for the vanger and that's where the mustache guy skewers himself. And then we have the end, the, the final scene when him and the vanger fights.

It is like the final fight scene

Sidey: later. He is properly beat up. I mean, he is fucking stabbed quite a few

Cris: yeah.

Sidey: Stabbed, yeah. Shot. He's been shot as well in the, I think it looked like a gut shot. And yeah, he's basically, he he fights the good fight and gets it

Reegs: done.

Cris: and yeah, gets it done. And I think, I think that's it really.

Sidey: No. Yeah. Then, then he

Cris: back to the, and that's when we see Napoleon.

Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: Napoleon comes outta the office. Then he goes to see the guy that Napoleon's has been to see and, and that's what he is told. Actually, no, fuck it. You can't have amnesty.

You're just gonna have to carry on or you know.[00:16:00]

face,

Cris: he kind of gets told, I'm gonna tell the guy outside. You. He's not gonna be the head of police anymore,

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Cris: so there's a job for you, but it won't be official.

And you can see him kind of walking.

Dan: the best he's gonna get. Yeah.

Cris: Pretty much. Yeah.

Sidey: He's got, he is got no negotiation. He's got no chips. Know he is gotta just suck it

Reegs: where's his miss is at this point?

Cris: point, she's dead.

Sidey: She was killed. Unfortunately she was

Cris: by the vanger and

Sidey: strangles, I think he does strangle him with, with the same scarf that she was strangled with. A nice bit of

Reegs: oh. Irony Ty out.

Cris: And meanwhile, Olga Lanko, who got the hots for him. Everybody wants to shag him.

Sidey: Yeah, I was quite keen.

Cris: He, she goes moves to a different country because she says, she says Paris. She leaves him a love letter and says, Paris, I become too notorious in Paris. I need to leave.

As much as I love it, I hope one day will. See each other and meet again.

Sidey: Shouldn't tell him where he was. She was going though he could have fucking gone and met her. But it is a true

Reegs: [00:17:00] I was about to ask that.

Sidey: Yeah, it is. This is one of several tellings of this story. There is a 1911, I think, version called Vidoc, about an

Reegs: about an ES anthropologist.

Sidey: Yeah, he was a real dude.

Cris: About Vidoc, the man himself. Yeah.

Sidey: I quite enjoyed it. I

Cris: Yeah. I thought, and, and it's fairly long as well, but, but the,

Dan: but it surprised me when I saw the length of it actually, Chris, that you, you had put this forward because you are notorious for you know, a quick Swift movie.

Cris: I had it on my four hours. Do you know? Yeah, it's two 15 I think, or two

Sidey: No, this one was just Nick under two hours. But then the other, the other movie was two and a

Cris: Right. Okay. Anyway I knew it is, it's a bit long, but I had it on my saved list for Prime when you had to pay for it. So, so for a while I had it and I was like.

It's a French film. I know Van San Castel. I, I, I quite like him. I quite like him and he's always been good and he's always been quite, he's played in big Hollywood movies. He was a Bain, a Bond villain at, in, in, at, in one of them.

Dan: he did a film called [00:18:00] Mezzanine or something like that. It's called which was really good. prison

Cris: And look, I liked it. It's, it could have been a slightly shorter, but at the same time it goes through. Betrayal and this

Sidey: that. Yeah, the cost

Cris: are great. The use of the Versailles, the pluses in Valley, the all the Paris landmarks. They show the building of the artist, Trium all these kind of

Dan: any flesh?

Sidey: sadly.

No. I was hoping

Cris: there's a bit of boobs from her. You see at the beginning,

Sidey: bit

Cris: a nipple.

Sidey: see a lot of cleavage. Right. Especially because she's wearing that kind of corty thing. Yeah. But never full boob. No dick or ass. So,

Reegs: what about the

Sidey: perhaps that accounts for the me for the money factor? 'cause this was made for 22 million euros and it was a big floppy.

Oh, right, just 7.6 euros return.

Sad times. It's better than that. I would say. It is worth your time. If, especially as it's, it's on Prime, so you can, if you've got a Prime membership, you can watch this for [00:19:00] n it's definitely a good value at that price. So it's a strong recommend for me.

Cris: Yeah. Strong.