Videovista have my review of Daniel Grou’s Quebecois Thriller Les 7 Jours du Talion.

The film was written by the same person who wrote the novel upon which it is based.  However, somewhat unusually, the film adaptation manages to completely miss the point of the novel.  The original book is all about a man who kidnaps his daughter’s murderer and announces to the media that he will torture the killer to death and then turn himself in to the police.  When the torture begins it is clear that the man is not psychologically equipped for the task and that in order to exact revenge the man must change.  He must effectively kill the person he once was and become someone much closer to his daughter’s killer, someone who can torture and murder another human being.  What makes the novel so interesting is the fact that the arguments for and against the man carrying out his threat are played out in real time through the media.  So, in effect, the man externalises his conscience.

Bizarrely, the film downplays this act of externalisation leaving only a somewhat dull and repetitive series of torture set-pieces.