After one
of their top informants is brutally murdered on a grassy knoll, it appears that
some cops may be behind the death. Cue
two internal affairs officers who are brought onto the case to work out just
what happened. The girls, Esther, a by
the book, tough as nails pro with a penchant for some very rough S&M sex
and Sally, a quiet almost mousy girl who also happens to be obsessed with a
daily spot of voyeurism, are a total odd couple and not what you would call the
normal poster girls for internal affairs. As to be expected when internal affairs are
called onto a case, the local police do not respond well to their presence
particularly one officer, Robert, who was the assassinated snitch’s
handler. He constantly tries to
undermine the girls and the case they are building to the point that he appears
he has something to hide, rather than just a professional hatred for these
girls.
There is
no point in beating around the bush here; I hated this film in almost every way
possible. “Tip Top” (why is it even
called that?!?) is a film that just does not work on any level. The script is one of the worst I have seen
for a very long time. Nothing is
explained properly and scenes just do not come together at all. In fact the entire film is a very disjointed
affair with some seriously bad editing.
Each cut seems to confuse the situation more, so the audience has no
idea what is going on. Honestly most of
the time I was clueless on how Esther and Sally came up with their leads to
follow, and because of this the story never seemed to progress in any normal
fashion.
Alarmingly,
all of the characters in “Tip Top” are so unlikable, particularly the two
leads, that you do not want to spend any time in their company; you do not
invest anything into these characters.
Also the disgustingly gross representation of S&M sex was a real
lowlight of the film and the fact that they play these scenes for laughs is
just deplorable. There is nothing funny
about these scenes and the constant gag of Esther catching the dripping blood
from her nose with her tongue (from a wound she receives during the violent sex
she loves so much) is a new low in French cinema.
Like the
characters they played, all of the performers are so unappealing and how a great
actress like Isabelle Huppert got mixed up in this drivel, I will never
know. The film is so poorly directed by
Serge Bozon that nothing ever seems to match (probably why the editing seems so
bad) and the lack of any visual style was very depressing. It just didn’t seem like Bozon had a clear
vision at all of what he wanted to achieve with this film, and thus it became
the mess it is.
Overall,
“Tip Top” was a total dud and a film I would never recommend or plan to
re-watch in the future. The walkouts we
had in my session were immense and believe me, I wanted to join them, but due
to the extremely cold weather and the fact that my ride home was in a different
cinema, I forced myself to stay. If you
ever get a chance to see “Tip Top”, run as far away as possible and avoid it
like the plague.
½ Star.
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