Monday, August 5, 2013

TIP TOP - MIFF 2013




After one of their top informants is brutally murdered on a grassy knoll, it appears that some cops may be behind the death.  Cue two internal affairs officers who are brought onto the case to work out just what happened.  The girls, Esther, a by the book, tough as nails pro with a penchant for some very rough S&M sex and Sally, a quiet almost mousy girl who also happens to be obsessed with a daily spot of voyeurism, are a total odd couple and not what you would call the normal poster girls for internal affairs.  As to be expected when internal affairs are called onto a case, the local police do not respond well to their presence particularly one officer, Robert, who was the assassinated snitch’s handler.  He constantly tries to undermine the girls and the case they are building to the point that he appears he has something to hide, rather than just a professional hatred for these girls. 

There is no point in beating around the bush here; I hated this film in almost every way possible.  “Tip Top” (why is it even called that?!?) is a film that just does not work on any level.  The script is one of the worst I have seen for a very long time.  Nothing is explained properly and scenes just do not come together at all.  In fact the entire film is a very disjointed affair with some seriously bad editing.  Each cut seems to confuse the situation more, so the audience has no idea what is going on.  Honestly most of the time I was clueless on how Esther and Sally came up with their leads to follow, and because of this the story never seemed to progress in any normal fashion.

Alarmingly, all of the characters in “Tip Top” are so unlikable, particularly the two leads, that you do not want to spend any time in their company; you do not invest anything into these characters.  Also the disgustingly gross representation of S&M sex was a real lowlight of the film and the fact that they play these scenes for laughs is just deplorable.  There is nothing funny about these scenes and the constant gag of Esther catching the dripping blood from her nose with her tongue (from a wound she receives during the violent sex she loves so much) is a new low in French cinema.

Like the characters they played, all of the performers are so unappealing and how a great actress like Isabelle Huppert got mixed up in this drivel, I will never know.  The film is so poorly directed by Serge Bozon that nothing ever seems to match (probably why the editing seems so bad) and the lack of any visual style was very depressing.  It just didn’t seem like Bozon had a clear vision at all of what he wanted to achieve with this film, and thus it became the mess it is.

Overall, “Tip Top” was a total dud and a film I would never recommend or plan to re-watch in the future.  The walkouts we had in my session were immense and believe me, I wanted to join them, but due to the extremely cold weather and the fact that my ride home was in a different cinema, I forced myself to stay.  If you ever get a chance to see “Tip Top”, run as far away as possible and avoid it like the plague.


½ Star.

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