Director Guillaume Canet
Starring Clive Owen, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup
Rated MA
Score 3.5/6

Chris has just been released on good behavior after several years in prison following a gangland murder. Waiting for him reluctantly outside the prison gates is his younger brother, Frank, a cop with a bright future. Chris and Frank have always been different, and their father, Leon, who has raised them alone, seems strangely to prefer Chris – this, despite all his troubles. Yet blood ties are the ones that bind.

Blood Ties is an English remake of a French movie Les liens du sang, which was adapted from a French novel of the same name written by Bruno and Michel Papet, it should also be noted that this is Guillaume Canet’s English-language directorial debut.
Blood Ties really had a lot going for it especially with the casting of the likes of Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Noah Emmerich, Zoe Saldana and James Cann. Nobody who was cast in this looked like they were going through the motions for their pay cheque. It felt like a chore to watch Blood Ties. It could have been because the script had to be translated from French into English that it might have lost something in the translation, though it might not be that fair to say this about the movie but none of the characters had any of the flair like some of the other crime movies that I have recently reviewed.