Saturday 26 March 2016

BLOOD ON THE DOCKS: VISA POUR L'ENFER (FRANCE 2)

Nicolas Vanot, an ER doctor from a well-off family, is found dead. He was tortured and shot in the neck. Later it's Victor Barnier, an ex-international reporter, who's discovered apparently drowned in the waters of the harbour.

Those two deaths lead to a case of human trafficking involving a Russian mobster.
 
Deux flics sur les docks (Blood on the Docks), the excellent French crime drama launched in 2011, is adapted from the Portsmouth based Joe Faraday novels by English crime fiction writer Graham Hurley. Le Havre police detectives Capitaine Richard Faraday (Jean-Marc Barr) and Capitaine Paul Winckler (Bruno Solo) returned last week on pubcaster France 2 for a fifth series of two feature-length episodes.

Directed by Edwin Baily, Visa pour l'enfer is an original story loosely based on Graham Hurley's work and written by Marc-Antoine Laurent with Jean-Marc Taba & Bernard Marié (Night Squad, Maigret). Winckler is worrying about Fabian (Liza Manili). She doesn't take Paul's concerns too well and asks Commissaire divisionnaire Dardenne (Mata Gabin) the permission to team up with Richard. Faraday finds out that his son Lulu (Jean-Marie Hall) knew Vanot, the first victim.

Bazza Swaty (Emmanuel Salinger) tries to play golf and he's basically Winckler's Huggy Bear in this episode. Visa pour l'enfer has a very good first hour with some quality material for the characters of Fabian, Lulu and Bill (Guillaume Viry). There's even a shootout scene. But the last half-hour loses momentum in spite of the great direction of Edwin Baily and a nice ending.

With Julien Boulenguiez as Bazza's henchman Jimmy, Michel Scotto Di Carlo (Michel), Xavier Schliwanski (Braquo) as Grigor Nevski, Aymeric Lecerf (Ange Tessardi), Laetitia Pembele Kandi (Leila Manouf), Corinne Belet (Pathologist), etc. This series was filmed from February to April 2015. Deux flics sur les docks is produced by Gétévé with France Télévisions and the support of Région Haute-Normandie. It is distributed by Zodiak Rights.

Jacques Salles and Christian Charret are the producers. Muriel Paradis exec produces. Music by Canadian composer Pierre-Philippe Côté. The song The Calling is from his Peter Henry Phillips project. Alex Arcoleo composed Antimatter, the collection's theme music. Title sequence designed by David Fernandes. Visa pour l'enfer caught 3.827.000 viewers (16.3 %) against a football match on TF1. The next series will be filmed between May and July 2016.

No comments: