filmalamosa This movie is really a sort of satire of Agatha Christie's Towards Zero. Like Peter Sellers movies it tries to make this genre a comedy.A further complication is added to the comedy.. The murderer may have been Aude she walks due to the incompetence of the Poirot Marple Colombo detective.Guillaume is just plain crazy.The film pokes fun at stilted period English murder mysteries.However only the second wife Carolin was funny she was the best part of the movie.I have trouble recommending this....turning murder mysteries into comedy is just not my idea of entertainment plus the slap stick acting--particularly Guillaume towards the end and the servants through out is just a turn off and not funny.Do Not Rent.

dbdumonteil Pascal Thomas began his career with estimable French comedies; then, in the naughties,he began to adapt Agatha Christie,with "Mon Petit Doigt M'a Dit" feat Thomas and Tuppence Beresford (the names were Frenchified ) and he used again the husband-and-wife detectives in his latest effort "Le Crime Est Notre Affaire".I read "towards zero" a long time ago but I've got a vivid memory of it;once again the names were Frenchified : Nevile and Kay Strange (check the surname)became Guillaume and Caroline Neuville(sic);in the role of the wife ,Laura Smet (daughter of Johnny Hallyday and actress Nathalie Baye) overplays and turns the original character -an elegant mysterious woman- into a shrew :one really wonders why Guillaume fell for her.The book begins,if my memory serves me well,with a long chapter depicting the numerous characters :like in any Christie book,all MUST have a reason to commit a murder;the first fifteen minutes are faithful to Christie's spirit.So is the rest of the movie ,although it almost verges on parody and it has not the entertaining side of "Mon Petit Doigt".Thanks to Danielle Darrieux (an old lady who has been working since ... 1931!such a longevity is absolutely stunning and the actress is as good as when she used to make movies with Henry Decoin,Julien Duvivier,Max Ophuls or (yes!) Billy Wilder and Joseph Mankiewicz) who enjoys smoking opium ,this is worth a look ,at least on a rainy day.

richard_sleboe Based on an Agatha Christie story, "Towards Zero" is a thriller in the guise of a picnic. Set in a magnificent mansion on the shores of Brittany, the story revolves around an aging matriarch, her family and the vultures that come with wealth and fortune. Her nephew Guillaume (Melvil Poupaud), an absurdly handsome and easygoing man on the outside, is torn between ambition and leisure. In general, it seems beneath him to even compete, but occasionally, he can't help wanting to win. Good thing there is always another girl to take his pain away: Aude (Chiara Mastroianni), soulful and patient to the point of masochism. Quietly elegant Marie-Adeline (Alessandra Martines), struggling with demons all her own. Gorgeous Caroline (Johnny Hallyday's breathtaking daughter Laura Smet), a loud-mouthed tramp in designer clothes. Then people start getting killed. The girls dance round in a ring and suppose, but the culprit sits in the middle and knows. A lot of fun. Unfortunately, the movie is currently without distribution outside France.

writers_reign In 2005 Pascal Thomas adapted an Agatha Christie story for the screen, signed up Catherine Frot and Andre Dussollier for the leads and enjoyed the minor success which prompted him to do it again ergo Zero Hour. In my case top-billed Danielle Darrieux - still acting in her ninety first year - was all the inducement I needed to get it up at the box office and the fact that Thomas has made another competent film is a bonus. If you like movies in which the actors wear timeless, well-cut clothes, move in a well-appointed château with a seascape thrown in for good measure and behave in obligatory mysterious ways so that an eventual murder has been long anticipated then you won't be disappointed. Chiara Mastroianni, looking more like her father every day is also on hand to remind us what we lost when her father died and if she bears only a passing resemblance to her mother that's not so important because mum Catherine Deneuve is still very much with us. It's doubtful if Chiara will ever achieve the iconic status of her parents but she gets acting jobs because casting directors and producers know she can deliver rather than because of her genes. An enjoyable romp.