Black Box

An instant candidate for Thriller of the Year from France. Black Box is a proper thriller with no weaknesses! The protagonist is a smart young black box analyst with a great passion, an unprecedented talent (trained as an acoustician) and a sense of hearing that is out of the normal spectrum. He is tasked with solving the crash of a brand new plane with 300 passengers where no one survived, quite possibly the hardest job of his life. Was it terrorists, a plane malfunction or something else? The film has the incredible advantage of benefiting from a very original and attractive plot, where the viewer is not only interested in the unraveling of the mystery itself, but also how such a job in a similar disaster takes place in the real world, for which I am grateful. The whole film from beginning to end runs like a Swiss watch, it is incredibly suspenseful, the atmosphere is powerfully unsettling, the main character's performance is almost Oscar-worthy, the soundtrack is creepily horrifying to the point of eeriness, the aircraft simulation ( carnage,wow,lol. that's all I can say). There’s a corporate conspiracy of aircraft companies, elaborate and intelligent twists and turns and a quite shocking and unexpected finale. Until the last moment the viewer has no idea how it will all turn out and the denouement is of course realistically frightening. It works as a whodunit, as a thriller and as a drama, and in all ways the director goes about it with a straight face and with his head held high. Bravo, I'm really impressed. I heartily recommend this to everyone, everyone should see this. Story 5/5, Action 2/5, Humour 0/5, Violence 0/5, Entertainment 4/5 Music 5/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 5/5, Suspense 5/5, Emotions 4/5, Actors 5/5. 9/10. (03/27/2022)

Feline hearing and rat stench. Following "Wolf Call," another French specialist in acoustics who can effortlessly tell if the co-pilot had beans for breakfast. This time, the story revolves around an office employee tasked with saving lives by ensuring mistakes aren't repeated. But you know how it is—some carpets are for flying, while others just cover up swept dirt. It’s a tech thriller overloaded with expert knowledge that loses its lift due to repetitive patterns and predictable genre elements. The penultimate ending, with the motor control takeover, worked well, but then an unnecessary feathered creature of retribution swooped in. (03/12/2024)

Wow. I'm amazed and applaud the kind of thing the French have come up with. A plane with 300 passengers crashes under mysterious conditions and a black box analyst and also trained acoustician takes on the job, but after a while discovers that the plane crash may not be as clear as the evidence suggests. The film has absolutely superb cinematography and lead actor and, most importantly, an idea that we have never seen before, the innovation literally oozes from the film. The first hour is a quality opener, but whereas in the second half most films lose momentum and start to get boring, Black Box picks up the pace and goes all the way to the end. The tension works, the soundtrack highlights it perfectly, and most of all, the scenes behind the curtain of the aviation industry show us the process of aircraft safety approval, post-crash simulator testing, black box concepts and "unboxing", and generally all around, which I'm terribly glad for because there hasn’t a film on a similar subject yet. As the film comes to a close, we also get the main villain, the reveal, and the final overarching point, which is just icing on the cake. I'm thrilled, and this is the first time in a good while that I haven't been bored for a moment - and that's saying something at 129 minutes. (03/23/2022)