The Lost Son | |
---|---|
Directed by | Chris Menges |
Written by |
|
Produced by | Finola Dwyer |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Barry Ackroyd |
Edited by |
|
Music by | Goran Bregović |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by |
|
Release date |
|
Running time | 102 minutes |
Countries |
|
Languages |
|
The Lost Son is a 1999 crime drama starring French actor Daniel Auteuil and set in London. It was directed by Chris Menges. [1]
Xavier Lombard is a Parisian private detective based in London. His best friend is Nathalie, a high-class call girl. He gets a telephone call from an old friend in the Paris police department, now a businessman whose brother-in-law is missing. The missing man's parents hire Xavier over their daughter's objections, and he quickly finds himself caught up in the underworld of child sex slavery. He guesses that the lost son is dead and shifts his focus to finding and breaking this lucrative business of child trafficking. He gets a reluctant Nathalie to hunt "the Austrian", the shadowy head of the pedophile ring. Violence erupts quickly, and Xavier soon has little more to lose.
The film opened in the UK on 25 June 1999 on 24 screens and grossed £15,059 in its opening weekend. [2]
DVD Verdict panned the film, writing "The Lost Son has its heart in the right place, but it fumbles the ball by presenting an idea with great potential in a fairly lackluster package. There is not enough substance here to make the film worthy of a purchase." [3] The Herald was mixed in their review, stating that Menges "handles the unpleasant aspects in Eric and Margaret Leclere's script with tact" but that the film had too many unbelievable moments. [4]
The Quarrymen are a British skiffle and rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several school friends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of their school, the Quarry Bank High School. Lennon's mother, Julia, taught her son to play the banjo, showed Lennon and Eric Griffiths how to tune their guitars in a similar way to the banjo, and taught them simple chords and songs.
Neil Stanley Aspinall was a British music industry executive. A school friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he went on to head the Beatles' company Apple Corps.
Daniel Auteuil is a French actor and director who has appeared in a wide range of film genres, including period dramas, romantic comedies, and crime thrillers. In 1996 he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival together with Belgian actor Pascal Duquenne. He is also the winner of two César Awards for Best Actor, one in 1987 as Ugolin Soubeyran in Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources and one for his role in Girl on the Bridge. For his role in Jean de Florette he also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Auteuil is considered one of France's most respected actors.
Josiane Balasko is a French actress, writer, and director. She has been nominated seven times for César Awards, and won twice.
Tale of the Mummy is a 1998 adventure horror thriller film directed by Russell Mulcahy. The film stars Jason Scott Lee, Jack Davenport, Louise Lombard and Christopher Lee.
Saw II is a 2005 horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by Leigh Whannell and Bousman. It is the sequel to 2004's Saw and the second installment in the Saw film series. The film stars Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Beverley Mitchell, Dina Meyer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Erik Knudsen, Shawnee Smith, and Tobin Bell. In the film, a group of ex-convicts are trapped by the Jigsaw Killer inside a house and must pass a series of deadly tests to retrieve the antidote for a nerve agent that will kill them in two hours.
The Girl on the Bridge is a 1999 French drama film shot in black and white and directed by Patrice Leconte, starring Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis.
Yellowbeard is a 1983 comedy film directed by Mel Damski and written by Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Bernard McKenna, and David Sherlock, with an ensemble cast featuring Chapman, Cook, Peter Boyle, Cheech & Chong, Martin Hewitt, Michael Hordern, Eric Idle, Madeline Kahn, James Mason, and John Cleese, and the final cinematic appearances of Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan, and Peter Bull.
Caché, also known as Hidden, is a 2005 neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Michael Haneke and starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. The plot follows an upper-middle-class French couple, Georges (Auteuil) and Anne (Binoche), who are terrorised by anonymous tapes that appear on their front porch and seem to show the family is under surveillance. Clues in the videos point to Georges's childhood memories, and his resistance to his parents' adopting an Algerian orphan named Majid, who was sent away. The tapes lead him to the now-grown Majid.
The Eighth Day is a 1996 Franco-Belgian comedy-drama film that tells the story of the friendship that develops between two men who meet by chance. Harry, a divorced businessman who feels alienated from his children, meets Georges, an institutionalised man with Down syndrome, after Georges has escaped from his mental institution and is nearly run over by Harry. The film was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 69th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The Bait, also known as Fresh Bait, is a 1995 French film directed by Bertrand Tavernier about two boys and a girl who commit a murder, with the girl acting as the "bait".
Alfred Lennon, also known as Freddie Lennon, was an English seaman and singer who was best known as the father of musician John Lennon. Alfred spent many years in an orphanage with his sister, Edith, after his father died.
InAlienable is a 2007 science fiction film with horror and comic elements, written and executive produced by Walter Koenig, and directed by Robert Dyke. It was the first collaboration of Koenig and Dyke since their 1989 production of Moontrap. Koenig said that "the story really involves that relationship between the human being and the alien. At first, it's assumed that the alien [is] a parasite growing in a host, but because it has some of the human DNA, it's significantly more than that. Even though it comes from another world, it's a part of our world. Really, it's a love story."
On Guard is a 1997 French swashbuckler film directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Daniel Auteuil, Fabrice Luchini, Vincent Perez, and Marie Gillain. Adapted from the 1858 historical novel Le Bossu by Paul Féval, the film is about a skilled swordsman named Lagardère who is befriended by the Duke of Nevers. When the duke is attacked by his evil cousin Gonzague, the duke in his dying moments asks Lagardère to avenge him and look after his infant daughter.
Jean Edmond Dujardin is a French actor and comedian. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in Paris before guest starring in comedic television programmes and films. He first came to prominence with the cult TV series Un gars, une fille (1999–2003), in which he starred alongside his partner Alexandra Lamy, before becoming a popular film actor with comedies such as Brice de Nice (2005), Michel Hazanavicius's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006), its sequel OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009), and 99 Francs (2007).
Stephen Desberg is a Belgian writer of comics. In 2010, he was the 10th bestselling author of comics in France, with 412,000 copies of all his comics together sold that year.
Laurence Anyways is a 2012 Canadian epic romantic drama film written, directed and edited by Xavier Dolan. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Suzanne Clément won the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress. Laurence Anyways also won the Queer Palm Award at the festival.
The Well-Digger's Daughter is a 2011 French Romantic Drama film. Daniel Auteuil makes his directorial debut as he stars alongside Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Kad Merad, Sabine Azéma, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, and Nicolas Duvauchelle.
Because He's My Friend, also known as Love Under Pressure, is a 1978 Australian TV movie about a married couple and their mentally disabled son. It was one of six telemovies made in Australia as co-productions between ABC and Transatlantic Enterprises. It was the final film of veteran American director Ralph Nelson.
It's Only the End of the World is a 2016 drama film written, directed and edited by Xavier Dolan. The film is based on the 1990 play by Jean-Luc Lagarce and stars Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, and Vincent Cassel. It is about a young playwright who reunites with his family after a 12-year absence to inform them he is going to die.