Antoine Olivier Pilon and Josh Hartnett are on good form as a heroin addict caught in police trap and the journalist who reports on the case
Pulpy, structurally a touch otiose, but eminently watchable throughout, this based-on-real-events crime drama tells two entwined stories. One is about a French-Canadian drug addict called Daniel Legér, a stand-in for actual historical figure Alain Olivier, who becomes the entrapped fall guy for a disastrous drug sting organised by Vancouver police officers in Thailand. The other half, snipped together via tricksy editing to disguise which events are taking place before the stories converge, is about the determined if showboaty journalist Victor Malarek (a role flatteringly filled by Josh Hartnett) who delved into Legér’s case.
Related: Josh Hartnett: 'People genuinely thought I'd been thrust on them'...
Pulpy, structurally a touch otiose, but eminently watchable throughout, this based-on-real-events crime drama tells two entwined stories. One is about a French-Canadian drug addict called Daniel Legér, a stand-in for actual historical figure Alain Olivier, who becomes the entrapped fall guy for a disastrous drug sting organised by Vancouver police officers in Thailand. The other half, snipped together via tricksy editing to disguise which events are taking place before the stories converge, is about the determined if showboaty journalist Victor Malarek (a role flatteringly filled by Josh Hartnett) who delved into Legér’s case.
Related: Josh Hartnett: 'People genuinely thought I'd been thrust on them'...
- 10/28/2020
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
We are in Toronto 1989. Meet floppy haired, bearded Josh Harnett as Victor Malarek – an investigative reporter who isn’t afraid of following any story he thinks worthy and the type of man who would swerve a car out of the way of a cat – at face value a nice chap. After missing the birth of his daughter due to a lead, he becomes obsessed in exposing a heroin bust coordinated by bend coppers to frame an innocent man and ultimately leaving him to rot in a Thai prison. The man oozes confidence, knows what he wants and we quickly get a sense that he will expose this story no matter what it takes.
Daniel Roby, known for TV series Versailles takes on this inspired by real events narrative. Much like the pace of Versailles, Target Number One is dialogue heavy with lingering scenes which, in the main, keep you engaged.
Daniel Roby, known for TV series Versailles takes on this inspired by real events narrative. Much like the pace of Versailles, Target Number One is dialogue heavy with lingering scenes which, in the main, keep you engaged.
- 10/22/2020
- by Gloria Daniels-Moss
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
There’s a frustrating element to watching a film that is only partly effective. Certain elements draw you in, while others push you away. Sometimes that can be a content issue, but in the case of Most Wanted, it’s more just in how the story is being told. The dramatic elements, the crime elements, the thriller elements, they’re all there. They just never get the full attention that they deserve. In telling a split narrative, filmmaker Daniel Roby doesn’t give any element enough focus, presenting them as pieces, which prevents them from landing with their intended impact. Undoubtedly, the intentions here were good, but that alone does not a good bit of cinema make, sadly. The movie is a crime drama/thriller, based on a true story. Told in fragments, we follow three plot strands that eventually come together. For ex heroin junkie Daniel Léger (Antoine Olivier Pilon), staying clean is hard,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Directed and penned by Daniel Roby, Most Wanted centers on Daniel Léger (Antoine Olivier Pilon), a drug addict who becomes the victim of a drug deal that lands him in a Thai prison. With corrupt drug dealers (Jim Gaffigan) and agents (Stephen McHattie) using him as a pawn, it’s up to journalist Victor Malarek (Josh [...]
The post Antoine Olivier Pilon Explores New Acting Challenges With ‘Most Wanted’ Journey appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.
The post Antoine Olivier Pilon Explores New Acting Challenges With ‘Most Wanted’ Journey appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.
- 7/26/2020
- by Greg Srisavasdi
- HollywoodOutbreak.com
The hard-headed reporter who doesn’t play by the rules is a stock character of films that invariably do. So it proves, again, in “Most Wanted,” a fact-based Canadian procedural of police skulduggery and journalistic derring-do that does its own job with proficient integrity, but as much inventiveness as you’d guess from that all-purpose placeholder of a title. Writer-director Daniel Roby has fictionalized the grim story of Alain Olivier, a small-time drug dealer tricked in 1989 by Canuck police into traveling to Thailand to orchestrate a major heroin score, landing him several years in a local prison. Victor Malarek, the real-life journo who uncovered the agents’ corruption, retains his identity in Roby’s telling, though as played with furrowed brow and gruff virtue by Josh Hartnett, he’s a movie hero through and through.
What sparks of strangeness and intrigue “Most Wanted” has emerge principally from the presence of Antoine-Olivier...
What sparks of strangeness and intrigue “Most Wanted” has emerge principally from the presence of Antoine-Olivier...
- 7/23/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
It feels like a good time to release a film that depicts a deeply corrupt, miscalculated miscarriage of justice perpetrated by law enforcement officials. Most Wanted, written and directed by Daniel Roby, tells the real-life (though fictionalized for dramatic purposes) story of Alain Olivier and his tragic stint in Bang Kwang prison after being arrested for selling drugs. You see, young Alain was a victim of entrapment by the Rcmp (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
Roby renames his Olivier character Daniel Leger, played with heavy pathos by Antoine Olivier Pilon. Set in British Columbia, Daniel is a young man with a drug addiction and no money, who soon gets roped into a low-level criminal enterprise led by Picker. Some time later, investigative journalist Victor Malarek (Josh Hartnett) sniffs out something rotten in the Leger story the Rcmp are selling. Ambitious to a fault, Malarek barely convinces his editor (J.C. MacKenzie) to pursue the lead.
Roby renames his Olivier character Daniel Leger, played with heavy pathos by Antoine Olivier Pilon. Set in British Columbia, Daniel is a young man with a drug addiction and no money, who soon gets roped into a low-level criminal enterprise led by Picker. Some time later, investigative journalist Victor Malarek (Josh Hartnett) sniffs out something rotten in the Leger story the Rcmp are selling. Ambitious to a fault, Malarek barely convinces his editor (J.C. MacKenzie) to pursue the lead.
- 7/22/2020
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
After a stratospheric rise to stardom in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Josh Hartnett settled down. Since then, much has been made of his escape from Hollywood and the roles he was allegedly offered and turned down. Much less has been made of the good work he did in smaller fare around that same time. Films like Paul McGuigan’s Wicker Park, Rod Lurie’s Resurrecting The Champ, and Austin Chick’s August come to mind––all underrated pictures that deserve a larger audience.
Over a decade later, Hartnett, now 42 years old, is more versatile than ever before. Following an impressive three-season run on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful and a slew of smaller films of wide-ranging genres, he now plays real-life journalist Victor Malarek in Daniel Roby’s Most Wanted. The film, arriving digitally this week, is based on the story of Alain Olivier and his illegal arrest...
Over a decade later, Hartnett, now 42 years old, is more versatile than ever before. Following an impressive three-season run on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful and a slew of smaller films of wide-ranging genres, he now plays real-life journalist Victor Malarek in Daniel Roby’s Most Wanted. The film, arriving digitally this week, is based on the story of Alain Olivier and his illegal arrest...
- 7/21/2020
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
"If what happened here really reaches the public, you're off." Paramount has unveiled an official trailer for an indie dramatic thriller titled Most Wanted, formerly known as Target Number One before this new title change. From Quebecois writer / director Daniel Roby, the film follows the story of real life reporter Victor Malarek who unraveled a twisted drug deal, which conspired to having the wrong guy sentenced to 100 years in a Thai prison. Antoine-Olivier Pilon stars as Daniel, who was forced into a dangerous drug deal against his will and landed himself in jail. Josh Hartnett plays the investigative journalist trying to get to the bottom of the story and free him. The full cast includes Jim Gaffigan, J.C. MacKenzie, Rose-Marie Perreault, and Don McKellar. This looks like a solid film, another tribute to intrepid journalists. Here's the first official trailer (+ new poster) for Daniel Roby's Most Wanted, direct from YouTube...
- 6/18/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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