Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

For the past few days or so, every other film I have seen has starred Edward Furlong, purely by coincidence, but I couldn't let it slip by without reviewing at least one of them, So I've gone for the one I least enjoyed. Surprising, yes. But there are enough good Furlong movies out there to even things out. Not that I don't like Furlong, I do. But this movie failed to entertain me, or provoke any sort of passion whatsoever.

And my apologies if I go a bit wayward in this review, only, having just read Presleysmama's surreal response to the question Who composed the 1812 Overture? which was 4 prostitutes, the Toothfairy and Jabba The Hut, I'm finding it hard to contain myself from occasional spontaneous Mutley type laughing.


Three Blind Mice(aka Une souris verte)

Director

Mathias Ledoux

Cast


Edward Furlong - Thomas Cross
Emilia Fox - Claire Bligh
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Mark Hayward
Ben Miles - Lindsey
Elsa Zylberstein - Nathalie Cross
Peter Wight - Tomlinson
James Laurenson - Storbest
Craig Kelly - Frank Cross


This movie is a French/British collaboration, which can be dodgy at best, boasting quite an impressive cast, on the whole. Part of the Fear dot com internet voyeurism and snuff genre of movies.

Thomas Cross (Edward Furlong, American History X, Animal Factory) plays an American computer wiz living in London (and looks uncannily like Jarvis Cocker from Pulp in this movie), who in his spare time likes to access webcam sites. For some time he has been communicating with Cathy (Valérie Decobert, Jai Faim!!! The fact that that movie has 3 exclamation marks is enough to stir mild interest, I may have to see it) who (as we later discover) lives in Amsterdam (which caused an outburst of Nederlands ist heel vreemd! as anything Dutch often does with me) One evening as he logs onto Cathy's webcam site, the transmission is interrupted by a firewall. Cross, being the expert he is, knows how to get around this. After contacting his brother's wife, Natalie (Elsa Zylberstein, Les Grands Boulevards) and asking her to retrieve a firewall hacking code from his brother's PC. He quickly logs back on to Cathy's site, only to see a masked man appear in her apartment, and brutally murder her. Somewhat frantic, he contacts the police and explains what he has just seen. The police, of course, drag him in as a witness, and soon have him down as their prime suspect. Which is where I started to get confused. Surely, after they discovered Cathy was in Amsterdam, and Cross's phone call to the police as she was being murdered, they could conclude that from Cathy's time of death, that Cross was in London, and not indeed, Holland. But no, this doesn't appear to matter to the British police.

Being somewhat inept in the world of computers and cyberspace, the British police enlist the help of an Interpol computer expert, Claire Bligh (Emilia Fox, The Pianist).

The police start to question Cross as to how he managed to break the firewall on Cathy's site. After having struck up a friendship with Bligh, who persuades him to tell them, he admits he got it from his brother. His brother, Frank (Craig Kelly, Queer As Folk UK, Silent Cry..who has the most appalling American accent in this movie, incidentally). Before Frank Cross can be brought in for questioning, he is mysteriously murdered.

Bligh, who by this time is beginning to fall for Cross, (seriously, you would never put these 2 together in real life, it'd be like Macauley Culkin dating Isabella Rossellini, it just wouldn't happen) has enlisted the help of a former colleague, friend and love interest, Mark Hayward (Chiwetal Ejiofor.. say that 5 times fast..Love actually, Amistad) to investigate whether what happened to Cathy has been done before. Sure enough, he comes up with a few more cases with exactly the same MO from different parts of Europe. Girls with webcam sites have been brutally murdered (the live stream being interrupted by a firewall before the crime is committed) over the past several years. Seemingly to be resold as snuff movies.

Not entirely sure whether all this involves the police, or indeed the government, Bligh, Cross and Hayward hatch a plan to reel in the culprits. Bligh goes back to France, which is where she lives, and sets up her own site with a 24hour webcam feed, she disguises herself, then goes about her daily life. Unbeknownst to them all, where they live has been bugged by, well, we don't really know, and never really find out. So whoever is responsible for all the murders, knows exactly what Bligh, Hayward and Cross are doing at any given time.

Cross, who has by this time fallen in love with Bligh, decides to go to France because he misses her. Just as they are in the middle of the horizontal tango, a masked man appears in Bligh's apartment. Hayward, who is watching all this, tries to call to warn them, but just as he does, he is murdered himself by someone we don't see. Bligh and Cross manage to foil the attempt on their lives, by shooting the assailant and hurling him out of the window.

And that's almost that. With the exception of a twist at the end, that, actually isn't a twist at all, or is it? Don't ask me.

Safe to say this movie confused the hell out of me on several levels, including why it's called Three Blind Mice. I literally lost the plot several times over. It's awkward and shoddy workmanship on Ledoux's part. Whilst it's acted well and the concept is interesting, after seeing it, I felt like I'd snacked before lunch, it filled a small hole, but I wasn't entirely satisfied. It's not usually like me to be Switzerland where movies are concerned, I either love or hate, but with this I felt a pull to neither extreme. I may watch it again to try and fill in the gaps, because granted, I could have missed a few key points since I kept getting distracted, or rather, found myself so bored I was thinking of more interesting things. Like what the definition of a boombastic jazz style is, or how green the tomatoes were at the Whistle Stop Cafe, or how much I love the phrase Nicht Abdecken, or harking back to my thoughts of Hamlet being bi-polar.

I recommend this if you're into the world of computers and the internet etc, but don't be expecting a gritty thriller that will leave you intrigued, take it at face value with low expectations. Watch it, then use the video case as a shelf prop. Not that I did that, honest.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age