Nitro series

(In French, On TV, November 2020) I wasn’t all that fond of the first Nitro film—despite good technical production values and the ambition to deliver something akin to the Fast and Furious series in a French-Canadian context, the film erred by going ludicrously melodramatic and not quite understanding the balance between pathos and action. The sequel isn’t quite as atonal, but it still suffers from many of the issues of the original. Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge is back in action as a man with a substantial potential for violence, escaping from prison to go rescue his now-grown son from the influence of a crime gang selling fatal drugs. There’s a little bit more to this, however—As the script dumbly chooses to conceal (despite it being obvious from the start), he’s really working to infiltrate the gang. Nitro Rush is far better once it gets down to the nitty-gritty of its action sequences, swapping the urban jungle of Montréal for the rural backwoods of Québec as the characters try to sneak into a synthetic drug lab in the middle of nowhere. A car testing sequence is awkwardly inserted in the middle of the film to remind us that the first film was heavily in nitro-powered racing, but otherwise the pickup truck is the vehicle of choice here (including a rather good shot in which a pickup races to turn on a rural road). Technical credentials are unusually good for a French-Canadian film: slick direction and capable cinematography do much to paper over the dubious choices made in the script, which pits criminals against criminals and relies on protagonist-centred morality as a substitute for actual moral values. As a film, Nitro Rush is watchable—not quite so irritating as its predecessor, but not quite as ambitious on the action either. Lemay-Thivierge is not bad, but even the conclusion’s promise of further adventures is not really enticing considering that the series has been a half-misfire so far.