Jean Reno stars in Cold Blood, one of his two films with a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a lower audience score than his other 0%, marking it as his weakest project. The film technically opened in the US, but its four-digit box-office take convinced me that it wasn’t a wide release. It’s more comfortable on Netflix, where it’s managed to climb the charts. Unfortunately, it’s equally terrible on the small screen.
Writer/director Frédéric Petitjean hails from France. He’s more notable as a writer than a director, but he’s not really a star for either. Cold Blood is his only feature directorial credit, but he does have a short film under his belt. If you trust IMDb ratings, his best film is called Turning Tide. It’s a sports drama about a yacht race. Petitjean is new to directing, and he clearly still needs work.
Cold Blood is Jean Reno’s Darkest Moment
Remember how Logan was a send-off to both Wolverine as a character and Hugh Jackman as his portrayer? Cold Blood kind of feels like it’s trying to sunset the broad concept of Jean Reno playing a hitman. Reno portrayed one of the most iconic assassins ever put to film in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional. That wasn’t even his first turn as a contract killer for Besson. He played Victor “The Cleaner” in La Femme Nikita, another stellar performance. Cold Blood sees him put on a withered version of that old assassin routine. His new hitman, Henry, recently retired, but he has to pick up his gun again when an injured woman turns up at his door. Yet again, he’s a killer trying to do right by a young woman as his life of violence catches up with him. You’ll feel ready to say goodbye almost immediately.
It seems like no one saw Cold Blood outside of France. I get the sense that it’s a completely new name to the millions of people currently watching it on Netflix. If you look at FlixPatrol’s worldwide Netflix roundup, you’ll notice that France doesn’t have the film among its top ten. Europe, Asia, and South America have elevated the film considerably. For his part, this is not a career low point for Jean Reno. He seemingly faces the same decision every time he signs onto a film. He can either be a minor antagonist in a relatively big project or the star of bargain bin garbage like this. It’s a shame to see a great performer waste his time, but things could honestly be worse. He could have Liam Neeson’s later career.
Cold Blood isn’t worth watching. It fails at everything it tries to do, and Reno has already done most of it elsewhere. Its current Netflix popularity could be a slight boon to its producers. Their blood probably ran cold when they saw it make $1 million on a $2.7 million budget.
