''Frantic'' is a 1988

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

n- French

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by

Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a (né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two ...

and starring

Harrison Ford Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. His films have grossed more than $5.4billion in North America and more than $9.3billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient o ...

and

Emmanuelle Seigner Emmanuelle Seigner (born 22 June 1966) is a French former fashion model, singer, and actress. She is known for her roles in '' The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'' (2007), '' The Ninth Gate'' (1999) and '' Frantic'' (1988). She has been nominat ...

. The film score is by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...

Plot

Dr. Richard Walker (

) is a surgeon visiting

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

with his wife Sondra ( Betty Buckley) for a medical conference. At their hotel, she is unable to unlock her suitcase, and Walker determines that she picked up the wrong one at the airport. While Walker is taking a shower, Sondra receives a phone call that Walker can't hear and she mysteriously disappears from their hotel room. Still jet-lagged, Walker searches for his wife in the hotel with the help of a polite but mostly indifferent staff and then wanders outside to look for her himself. A wino overhears him in a café and says he saw Sondra being forced into a car in a nearby alley. Walker is skeptical, until he finds his wife's ID bracelet on the cobblestones. He contacts the Paris police and the U.S.

Embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

, but their responses are

bureaucratic The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...

, and there is little hope anyone will bother looking for her. As Walker carries on the search himself he stumbles onto a murder site where he encounters the streetwise young Michelle, who mistook Sondra's suitcase for her own at the airport. He realises that Michelle is a career drug smuggler, but does not care or know for which shady dealers she is hired. Michelle reluctantly helps Walker in his attempt to learn what was packed in her switched suitcase, and how to trade the contents for the return of his kidnapped wife. Following their visit to Michelle's apartment, Walker's hotel room and shabby cabarets, it turns out that the smuggled contents are not drugs, but a

krytron The krytron is a cold-cathode gas-filled tube intended for use as a very high-speed switch, somewhat similar to the thyratron. It consists of a sealed glass tube with four electrodes. A small triggering pulse on the grid electrode switches the ...

, an electronic switch used as a detonator for nuclear weapons, stolen and smuggled inside a souvenir replica of the

Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''; French: ''La Liberté éclairant le monde'') is a List of colossal sculpture in situ, colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the U ...

, on orders of some Arab country's agents. The American embassy, working with Israeli agents, wants to get hold of the precious device, and they have no problem letting Sondra die for it. In order to save his wife, Walker joins forces with Michelle, who is only interested in getting her paycheck. The film ends with a confrontation on the

Île aux Cygnes Île aux Cygnes (; en, Isle of the Swans) is a small artificial island on the river Seine in Paris, France, in the 15th arrondissement. It was created in 1827 to protect the bridge named the pont de Grenelle. It should not be confused with an ...

, in the middle of the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

, next to the Paris Statue of Liberty replica there, where Sondra is to be released in exchange for the krytron. However, a gunfight ensues between the Arab agents who were to get the precious device, and the Israeli Mossad secret agents who traced them to get hold of it. The Arabs are killed in the crossfire but Michelle is hit too, dying soon after having slipped the krytron into Walker's pocket, with Sondra at their side. Furious, Walker shows the krytron device to the Israeli agents, just to throw it into the Seine. He carries Michelle's body away, ready to leave Paris with his wife.

Cast

Production

Filming

Filming took place on location in Paris with exteriors filmed outside Le Grand Hotel in rue Scribe in the 9th arrondissement. The hotel's lobby also appeared in the film. Filming also took place at the

island in the

for the Lady Liberty scenes.

Release

''Frantic'' was released in the UK on 16 February 1988, with a release of 26 February in the US and a 30 March release in France. Also was released on DVD Juny 01, 2004 in Region 1.

Reception

Box office

The film was a disappointment at the box office with a domestic gross of $17,637,950, failing to recoup its production budget. However, the film was more successful in other countries such as

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

where it received 1,293,721 admissions.

Critical reception

Although a commercial failure in the US, ''Frantic'' was a critical success. Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported that 76% of critics gave positive reviews based on a sample of 42 reviews with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's consensus simply calls it "A tense, on-point thriller in the vein of Polanski's earlier work".

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

calculated an average score of 66 out of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale. The film received " two thumbs up" from

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...

and

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

on their television programme '' Siskel & Ebert and The Movies''. Pat Collins of

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by Fox Te ...

called it "Polanski's best film ever".

Desson Howe Desson Patrick Thomson is a former speechwriter for the Obama administration and former film critic for ''The Washington Post''. He was known as Desson Howe until 2003 when he changed his name after reuniting with his birth father. Biography ...

, of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', called the movie "vintage Polanski", with its relentless paranoia, irony, diffident strangers and nutty cameos. British film magazine ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' rated the movie three out five, calling it Polanski's most satisfying film since ''

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

'', and one of the best traditional thrillers to come down the pike in quite some time. Roger Ebert, in his review, gave the movie three stars, saying: "to watch the opening sequences of ''Frantic'' is to be reminded of Polanski's talent. Here is one of the few modern masters of the thriller and the film noir. ''Frantic'' is a reminder of how absorbing a good thriller can be."

References

External links

* * * *
''Frantic''
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Frantic 1988 films American mystery thriller films 1980s English-language films 1980s French-language films Films about missing people Films directed by Roman Polanski Films set in Paris Films shot in Paris Warner Bros. films Films scored by Ennio Morricone Films with screenplays by Robert Towne Films with screenplays by Gérard Brach Films with screenplays by Roman Polanski Films about vacationing American neo-noir films 1980s mystery thriller films 1988 multilingual films American multilingual films 1980s American films