Review: 22 Bullets (18)****

It's a plot as old as the movies themselves, but Richard Berry's intense, bleak and unapologetic thriller is executed with such style and verve that it's hard to see how it could be bettered.

Reno is Charly Matte, a once powerful gang boss who's given up his life of crime to live quietly with his wife and two children. How and why he becomes the target of a bunch of killers in a botched hit is the trail Charly himself vows to follow.

It takes him via his past to old friends and enemies and an increasingly useful relationship with the female cop who is as much on his tail as she is his attackers'.

Recovering and refusing to die, Charly resurrects memories of his old life and embarks upon a ferocious crusade, tracking his assailants one by one.

Reminiscent of the films of Jean-Pierre Melville, Luc Besson and even Quentin Tarantino, 22 Bullets is a dark, brutal and brooding tale that revels in violence while simultaneously decrying the endless cycle of death that afflicts Charly and his creed.

A companion piece to The Godfather, A Prophet and Goodfellas, 22 Bullets (aka L'Immortel) clings to the credo of the Krays: we only kill each other. Thus Charly doesn't bother with moralising; instead he goes after whoever wanted him dead with calm coolness. It's just business.

The escalating gang war that ensues throws up some incredibly fast-paced scenes of mayhem with Reno at their core.

Berry also presents his French backdrop as both impossibly cool and incredibly dangerous. Never has the Marseilles underworld seemed so seductive or so shrouded in doom.

Yet Charly is an anti-hero to cheer for. It doesn't matter that his old existence is littered with corpses. Instead old moods and mores come to the fore: this is a clinical exercise in retribution – a seek-and-destroy operation by one man on a very definite mission.

Like his cult breakthrough in Leon, Jean Reno was born to play Charly Matte.

Beginning with an eye-popping moment of carnage and never letting up, 22 Bullets offers the sixtysomething Reno a perfect opportunity to breathe life into another complex quasi-hero. Of course, he is quite

superb.

An awesome tale of the ultimate avenging angel, 22 Bullets (loosely based on a true story) is slick cinema at its best.