Restless (Sans répit) is a French remake of the 2014 South Korean film, A Hard Day. It is one of those crime/thriller/drama films that possesses a fairly watchable and interesting first half, with the narrative falling by the wayside of mediocrity, thereafter. This said mediocrity finds itself evenly distributed along the lines of predictability and melodrama.
Granted, the theme of corrupt cops, wanted drug dealers, blackmail and cover-ups, is a crowded one prone to cliché, but the premise, set in the aforementioned milieu, started off strong, holding the attention and raising expectations. The writers, director and cast have put in considerable work to make things look realistic up to a certain point, but the mounting conflict and its subsequent resolution are handled very poorly, leading to the story’s eventual implosion.
Thomas (Franck Gastambide) is a less-than-stellar cop belonging to a division under investigation for corruption. On the night of an Internal Affairs raid on his office, he is seen speeding towards an unknown destination. His mother is about to be placed in a casket, as his sister and daughter wait for him at the funeral parlour. Back at the station, his partner Marc (Michaël Abiteboul) and intern Naomi (Tracy Gotoas) scramble to destroy the bribe money Thomas has stashed away in his locker.
Under intense stress already, he swerves to avoid hitting a dog, only to crash into a man who bounces off his windshield mere metres ahead. Where the man appeared from remains a mystery. He conceals the body in the boot of his car before checking for eyewitnesses. Thomas’s crooked cop brain goes into overdrive as he hatches a crazy plan to bury the body inside his mother’s coffin at the funeral home.
He gets into a deliberate accident the next day to establish a credible alibi. But that’s the thing about such outlandish efforts to cover up a major crime…it comes back to haunt you in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine. CCTV footage of the hit-and-run, an unknown blackmailer who’s aware of even the minutest details, and a highly suspicious partner, stare Thomas in the face.