A group of dissident French fugitives dodge goose-stepping Gestapo officers in a drama that loses its battle with cliches
There is the kernel of a good idea in this second world war drama: a Gestapo officer (Sebastian Roché) in occupied
France is invited to a dinner at a Côte d’Azur villa where the serving staff are, unbeknown to him, the rebel radio broadcaster (Cary Elwes), dissidents and Jewish fugitives he has been hunting all along. Unfortunately, Matthew Hill and Landon Johnson’s timid film fails to fully capitalise on this uncomfortable scenario and misses opportunities elsewhere, instead going big on self-satisfied pieties about fighting the just fight.
Elwes’s Jacques is the gravelly voice of freedom in wartime Lyon, bidding insurgents over the airwaves to “stay safe” from his garret. But when his daughter Juliet (Greer Grammer) is almost caught filching a radio vacuum tube, she takes refuge in the office of Swiss financier Andre (Jason Patric). Her desperation is unrefusable – and her debutante looks don’t harm her either. Soon, with chief goose-stepper Klaus Jager closing in, Andre agrees to smuggle her and her household-in-hiding to his Mediterranean mansion.