jocedeg Brief summary: annoying overwhelming music clutters every moment of this ridiculously cliché movie. Every character is a one dimensional joke, every plot point predictable and, as far as American heist movies go, this one is the least interesting. Oh, did I mention this "american" heist movie is Canadian ? It's like the hugely under-talented ex music video director decided to copy the Michael Bay style of bad Hollywood crap but without bringing anything original to the recipe. And with very little money, I might add.Canuel, the director, once said in an interview about his other movie "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" that the way he writes his scripts is by watching lots of movies like "Lethal Weapon" and reproducing what he thinks works. Thank you for being honest about your lack of originality, Érik ! The writer of "Tunnel" probably used the same method to bastardize true story and make it so generic. Canuel's talent resides in color grading his movie to look like a bad episode of CSI and using every tired directing cliché used in the past decade to remove any interest this might have had.Skip it at all cost ! Seeing "Tunnel", and knowing that its inspired by a true story doesn't help

Claudio Carvalho In Montreal, the middle age thief Marcel Talon (Michel Coté) has spent a great part of his life in prison. When he leaves his confinement on probation, he promises to his beloved girlfriend Magdeleine "Maggy" Fortin (Marie France Marcotte) that he will find an honest job and have a decent life with her. Indeed Marcel has schemed the greatest heist to a bank ever happened in Canada, and he joins his old friend Fred Giguère (Jean Lapointe) and his non-reliable pal Smiley (Christopher Heyerdahl) and proposes to dig a long tunnel underground Montreal along the sewers for three months to reach the cellar of the Montral Bank. Fred's grandson and a friend of Smiley join the gang and along the robbery, an unexpected betrayal of his accomplices Smiley and Savard destroy the retirement plan of Marcel."Le Dernier Tunnel" is a very good movie based on a true heist of Montreal Bank called "the heist of the century". The realistic dramatic and suspenseful story of loyalty and betrayal has excellent performances and direction and is a great entertainment. I have never heard anything about this robbery, but this unknown little gem deserves to be discovered by fans of the genre. The shameful DVD released in Brazil does not offer the option of the original audio in French, only in English or Portuguese. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Último Túnel" ("The Last Tunnel")

Genseric Érik Canuel's "Le Dernier Tunnel" (2004), inspired from the true story of Marcel Talon's surreal bank robbery, tells the story of an audacious bank robbery made possible by digging a tunnel from the sewers beneath busy downtown Montreal streets into an underground bank volt, where millions of dollars are 'safely' kept. This film offers a genre approach unprecedented in Québec's cinematographic history, which Canuel seems to be making a ritual of, adding to his already impressive filmography, along with "La Loi Du Cochon" (2001) amongst others, a genre film of international caliber. "Le Dernier Tunnel", a typical heist film, reminiscent of such 1950s heist films as Jules Dassin's "Rififi", or of such recent renditions as Frank Oz's "The Score" (2001) (also shot in Montreal), proves that Québec's growing genre film industry can now be placed into an international context, without appearing recycled or banal, while maintaining a cultural uniqueness proper to Quebec. On an aesthetic level, taking into account the film's overall stylistic approach to the heist genre, "Le Dernier Tunnel" is cutting-edge; The editing is sharp and multi-layered, and the cinematography is meticulously executed -as it should be- to convey moods relative to any given scene, which is customary to Canuel's cinematic style, who is admittedly intent on using more than just a superficial cinematography. Overall, this picture, with a meager budge of only 4.5 million dollars -which for Quebec standard is considerably high, but represents nothing in comparison to any aesthetically equivalent Hollywood genre film- offers an approach to the heist film rarely scene before.Note: My grade of 7/10 is given within the context of the genre it conforms to -more precisely to Quebec's genre capabilities- and isn't meant to reflect anything pertaining to its place in the greater context of cinema's 110 year history, which would then be absurd. If it were, its grade would obviously be considerably lower.

bloodbathcat When le Dernier Tunnel failed to get important nominations at le Gala des Jutra ( Quebec's own Oscars ) Éric Canuel, director of Le Dernier Tunnel, said that the genre movies ( horror, thriller, etc. ) were not appreciated as more serious movies like The Barbarian Invasions. Well maybe so, but what Canuel is forgetting to mention is that his movie, genre movie or not, is one of the most uninspired thriller in years. I'm from Quebec so I already know all the actors in Le Dernier Tunnel and they are usually among the best ( like Michel Côté ) but Canuel's movie manages to make them look pretty stupid and artificial. Besides that the omni-present music is absolutely annoying, the camera work tries to be cool but only look clumsy and, worst of all, the ultra-conventional script and pretends-to-be-tough dialogues. So unless you've seen less than 10 movies in your life or if you are a teacher who wants to show an example of a bad bad movie stay away from Le Dernier Tunnel. One more thing: Quebec's critics rarely say bad things of Quebec's own movies because of the small market and that they want to protect themselves but even Le Dernier Tunnel got bad reviews so believe me when I say it's worst than bad !