Cinema. "Badh": Marine Vacth as a badass female Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne/Matt Damon is at war with a corrupt system. Badh/Marine Vacth, too, who challenges a rotten system. In place of the menacing CIA and its murky activities, the DGSE. Badh was the elite. Tasked with taking down an arms trafficker in Syria—we don't understand everything, except that everything goes wrong—she refuses an indefensible order, dumps the secret services, and disappears. Until her husband, in Morocco this time, becomes a target. And then it's off to revenge and betrayal.

Marine Vacth plays an opaque Badh, who says little. She acts, a combat expert, an elite sniper. She evades everything, foils traps, finds top-secret information, and dodges DGSE killers and their criminal allies. Badh sets the tone: it's a pure action thriller, with a badass superheroine, bordering on believability.

Marine Vacth delivers. She's worked hard and it shows, she rocks: hardcore physical training, weapons training, close-quarters combat, motorcycle stunts. But her Badh remains icy, without nuance. Problem: her morality, which made her leave the DGSE, collapses without logic. Here she is, out of revenge, committing horrible acts, a killer vigilante. The script betrays a dedicated actress. And the DGSE, variously portrayed (Grégoire Colin, Emmanuelle Bercot, etc.), is absolutely not well handled by the story, which explains her actions poorly and poorly.

Guillaume de Fontenay worked on his script with experts in dirty tricks. They validated the screenplay and injected realistic details: coded bags, Morse code, and even the opening Syrian operation, inspired by a real one that took place in 2018, into the script.

From reality to fiction, there is cinema, behind the scenes and the hell of the hyperviolence of the clandestine war waged by the French secret services. The genre demands extreme intensity, action, nerve, actors with guts, muscular performance, and tense staging. Guillaume de Fontenay stuck to it with a handheld camera. He kept it short: 1 hour 24 minutes with the objective of "increasing the action, concentrating the tension, and remaining faithful to the interiority of the main female character." The interiority is not there. Everything moves quickly, too quickly, and everything slips away.

Guillaume de Fontenay's direction stumbles in its execution. He strives for immersive realism, tracking Marine Vacth in nervous scenes and breathless chases. The choice pays off in the action sequences: Vacth's physical preparation gives Badh a visceral energy. But this approach becomes a trap. The camera, too agitated, borders on chaos, rendering some shots illegible. Pressed by his short format, the filmmaker sacrifices narrative breathing space. The transitions are abrupt, leaving the viewer groggy, disoriented, and very wary.

Badh by Guillaume de Fontenay, in theaters from Wednesday, August 6. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes.