Review of Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) by Ola G — 27 Aug 2015

In 1764 a mysterious beast terrorizes the province of Gévaudan and nearby lands. Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan), a knight and the royal naturalist of King Louis XV of France, and his Iroquois companion Mani (Mark Dacascos), arrive in Gévaudan to capture the beast. Upon arrival, they rescue Jean Chastel, an aged healer, and his daughter, La Bavarde, from an attack by soldiers. The young and enlightened Thomas, Marquis d'Apcher (Jacques Perrin), befriends them. Fronsac is initially skeptical about the beast's existence, since survivors describe it as much larger than any wolf he has ever seen. However, by studying the bite size on a victim of the beast, he deduces that it must weigh roughly 500 lb (227 kg). Captain Duhamel, an army officer leading the hunt for the beast, has killed dozens of ordinary wolves, but has not come close to the actual killer. While staying in Gévaudan, Fronsac romances Marianne de Morangias (Émilie Dequenne), the daughter of a local count, whose brother, Jean-François (Vincent Cassel), was also an avid hunter and a world traveler, before losing one arm to a lion in Africa. Fronsac is also intrigued by Sylvia (Monica Bellucci), an Italian courtesan at the local brothel. While investigating another victim, Fronsac finds a fang made of steel, and his doubts of the beast's existence increase. Another witness swears that the beast is controlled by a human master. Fronsac studies the patterns of the attacks and victims, trying to find a common thread and reveal a murderer. As the investigation proves to be unfruitful, the king's weapons master, Lord de Beauterne, arrives to put an end to the beast. But instead of doing so, Beauterne kills an ordinary wolf and tells Fronsac to alter the corpse so it resembles the monster accordingly. Fronsac hesitantly does so, and the bogus wolf is sent back to Paris, where it is put on display, much to the pleasure of the king and the French aristocracy. In Paris, the king's advisor shows Fronsac a copy of a book titled L'Édifiante ["The Edifying"] with treasonous theories, stating the beast has come to punish the King of France for his indulgence of the philosophers, and that the modern embrace of science over religion is heresy. Fronsac realizes that the beast is an instrument of a secret society, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, working to undermine public confidence in the king and ultimately take over the country. Fronsac is told that "officially" the beast is dead, warned to keep his mouth shut, and bribed with an appointment to travel to Senegal. Back in Gévaudan, the attacks by the real beast continue. Ignoring his orders, Fronsac returns to Gévaudan, determined to put an end to the beast's killings, and also to take Marianne away. Upon his return, the beast attacks and he sees it with his own eyes. It kills a man, but mysteriously refrains from attacking Marianne...

"Brotherhood of the Wolf" (Le Pacte des loups) is loosely based on a real-life series of killings that took place in France in the 18th century and the famous legend of the Beast of Gévaudan. I saw this stereotypical and formulaic mish mash of genres (horror, martial arts, swashbuckling adventure, historical costume drama) when it came out and of some reason I had forgotten partly what I did think of it back then so I decided to re-see it. And I can say that I simply don´t like this overacted and genre mixed piece of film. Everything is so stretched out and prepared for the MTV hyperkids to go bananas when seeing this technical stylised focused film leaving little left for character developments and a general believable look and feel from the time period. It´s mostly poor and not believable acting from the actors, too much camera technique involved during the movie, a testosterone pumped storyline that makes you lose interest in the progress and a truly silly end fighting scene between de Fronsac and Jean-François is the icing on this puff pastry. Empire gave the film a three star rating out of five stating that "An undeniably handsome creation, but its excessive length and surplus of directorial flourishes merely exacerbate the emptiness of an initially promising plot". The blend of various movie genres such as martial arts, mystery, costume drama and horror attracted certain amounts of criticism. In particular, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote "This new take on horror is more of the bloody same" whereas Stephen hunter of Washington Post said that it is "a mad agglomeration of styles and traditions that ultimately results in nothing so much as a mad agglomeration of styles and traditions." ultimately awarding the film a 0.5/4 score.