THE BURMA CONSPIRACY - ***

Directed by Jérôme Salle. Starring Tomer Sisley, Sharon Stone, Napakpapha Nakprasitte, Laurent Terzieff. France 2011, 119 mins. Certificate: 15.

Release Date: 23rd January 2012. RRP: £8.99 (DVD)

William Shakespeare - we can trust him right? He once claimed that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” but then he was never involved in the cynical world of film marketing, and in the case of French/Belgian action-thriller THE BURMA CONSPIRACY, there’s a lot in the name. Omitted from the title (outside of English-speaking territories) is a caveat: LARGO WINCH 2, and the film is actually a sequel to LARGO WINCH: THE HEIR APPARENT. The latter was a poorly received 2008 adaptation of a Belgian Comic book series hugely popular in France but largely obscure elsewhere. Continuing the story of a swarthy young millionaire (Largo Winch), now the head of his father’s vast business empire, the film sees Winch accused of crimes against humanity and sent on a globe-trotting mission to clear his name. So why the sneaky moniker-change? Presumably an attempt to repackage the film despite the series’ anonymity in the UK and US, it is a shot in the foot for a film which really needed both in order to stay standing.

Without prior knowledge of the characters, the whole ensemble sits somewhere between confusing and flat. Winch is noticeably more mature and refined than in his previous outing and his background as a child sold by his father to surrogates to be reared as an appropriate heir colours the film with a warmth that may not be apparent otherwise. Played with aplomb by Tomer Sisley, he is a man of few words yet still likeable, moralistic and cool-headed; somewhat of a young James Bond without the misogyny; and it is on Sisley’s performance that the film’s relative cohesion hinges.

An action-thriller with a gloss and polish so sleek that it stands happily alongside Hollywood’s finest visually, THE BURMA CONSPIRACY crucially lacks a great deal of heart. A third of the way in and the plot begins to startlingly resemble the big-hitters from the eighties; an evil warlord oppresses a small ethnic minority deep in the jungles of Burma and only one man (with a little help from his friends) can blow things up to liberate the masses. Despite an earnest attempt at recapturing the heyday of Stallone and Van Damme, the whole thing feels like a rather anaemic carbon-copy and is stretched out for far too long. There’s too many implausible twists and the film flips back and forth through time, from French to English to Thai, and from city to city without ever really settling into a groove.

The ensemble cast are a mixed bunch of wise inclusions and irritating throwaway villains and goons. Thankfully Winch’s bumbling aide Gauthier provides some genuine humour, but the most bizarre inclusion is Sharon Stone as an immaculate, stone-cold prosecutor on Winch’s trail. Stone brings a catty aggression to her role, although she is rather underused by Salle - who does see fit to include a playful nod to “that” scene from BASIC INSTINCT. Again, without some knowledge of who these people are it may take some time for audiences to get a grip on whom they should be rooting for and in a film such as this, there’s precious little time for exposition.

THE BURMA CONSPIRACY is a largely inoffensive, brainless and admirable attempt to bring Hollywood gloss to French cinema and for what it’s worth, it looks great. The cars are shiny, the chases breathless and the explosions suitably unlikely, but it offers nothing audiences won’t have seen before. Despite being based on a comic series revolving around espionage and adventure, the film lacks colour and zest (in spite of an incredible, if ridiculous, free-fall fight scene). Tight direction, solid performances and some fun scenes are let down by a predictable script, corny twists and a two hour length that the pace cannot sustain.

Terry Mulcahy.

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