Close Enemies (Freres Ennemis): Venice Film Review

I will basically watch anything starring Matthias Schoenaerts and that hasn’t always worked out well for me – what with his recent efforts including the Racer and the Jailbird and Red Sparrow. Close Enemies was an improvement on these, but I still wasn’t overly impressed by it.

Schoenaerts plays Manuel, who distributes cocaine. One day he is planning to sell a huge package with his childhood pals and two of their group are shot dead. Manuel manages to escape but he’s then on the run, having no clue who is after him or who to trust. His other close childhood friend Driss (Reda Kateb) works in the police and he breaks the boundaries by guiding Manuel through the situation.

There was nothing obviously wrong about Close Enemies, but I just felt so meh about the whole thing. The lead actors gave fine performances and the story took interesting and surprising turns but I was ambivalent. The story started off strong and I had no idea what it was about, so the initial incident shocked me and sustained my interest for a bit, but I became increasingly confused by all the twists and turns. With the exception of a couple of shocking developments, I eventually stopped caring about it, so the ending didn’t have the emotional impact it was going for.

I would really love Schoenaerts to pick roles in films I really like sometime soon, please!

Release information not known yet