Ad Vitam – Movie Review | Netflix (2/5)

AD VITAM on Netflix is a new Action Thriller from France. Guillaume Canet stars in this movie with a mystery at the heart of the story. The runtime is fairly short, but too much time is wasted on side plots. Read our full Ad Vitam movie review here!

AD VITAM is a new Netflix Action Thriller. This French movie features characters that work in the GIGN (I’ll get back to this later) and has lots of action. Guillaume Canet is the absolute star of the movie and does a good job. I’ve seen him better though.

For me, the story isn’t strong enough in this movie. Sure, there are good and strong moments, but as a whole, it feels lacking. Slow at times, then very forced at other times. Some things are predictable while others are so complex you’ll have no clue what’s going on.

Continue reading our Ad Vitam movie review below. Find it on Netflix from January 10, 2025.

An elite police officer in trouble

Officially, Ad Vitam is about Franck Lazarev (Guillaume Canet) escaping an attempted murder. However, this isn’t the case at all. They don’t want to kill him. Rather they want to force him to give up something that we have no idea what is.

To get Franck to give up the goods, they kidnap his very pregnant wife Léo (Stéphane Caillard). Following this opening scene, we go back to see what caused this dreadful situation.

It turns out that it’s all somehow related to his former job as part of the French Elite Intervention Squad (GIGN). On his final mission, he stumbled upon something and didn’t even realize it.

WHAT IS THE GIGN?

GIGN stands for “Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie national”. This translates to National Gendarmerie Intervention Group and is the elite police tactical unit of the French Police.

While there are elements of Ad Vitam that take too long and plot developments that seem a little forced, I did like that Léo wasn’t shown as a weak woman meant to start our hero, Franck, on some sort of redemption arc.

As an 8+ months pregnant woman, Léo is fierce!

Too many “filler” scenes

However, this fairly short movie also has a lot of “buddy scenes”. For a while, Ad Vitam is a buddy movie. But this movie has a mystery at the heart of the story. The runtime is fairly short, but too much time is wasted on side plots.

YOU MAY RECOGNIZE…

The actor playing “Benjamin” in this movie was also in Under Paris >

Think Top Gun but where everything happens in a flashback which takes up almost half of the runtime. We begin in the present, go back ten years to get a better understanding, and then move nine years forward before finally landing back where we started.

You’ll be a good hour into Ad Vitam before you ever know what’s really going on. That doesn’t make for very good storytelling in this particular case. We see all the consequences of something that we have no real grasp on.

Watch Ad Vitam on Netflix now

The director of this new French Netflix movie is Rodolphe Lauga. He also co-wrote the screenplay with star Guillaume Canet, and David Corona served as a contributing writer.

Having watched some of the previous movies written by and starring Guillaume Canet, I had higher expectations of this movie. Guillaume Canet previously directed, wrote, and co-starred in Tell No One which is brilliant. Of course, it was also based on a book by Harlan Coben.

The mystery in this Netflix movie almost becomes a sidenote for much of Ad Vitam while we’re becoming familiar with many characters. And sure, they are relevant, but not in any way that should require that much screen time in an action thriller.

Ad Vitam is on Netflix globally from January 10, 2025.

Details

Director: Rodolphe Lauga
Writers: Rodolphe Lauga, Guillaume CanetDavid Corona
Cast: Guillaume Canet, Stéphane Caillard, Nassim Lyes, Zita Hanrot, Alexis Manenti, Johan Heldenbergh, Etienne Guillou-Kervern, Rayan Bouazza