Boarding Gate

Like French filmmaker Olivier Assayas' previous picture Clean, which offered an unsentimental portrait of a drug-addicted mother trying to go straight, Boarding Gate centers on a female protagonist, but this globe-trotting thriller has more in common with the director's nihilistic Demonlover. The stylized confusion (with sluggish action and dull dialogue emphasized over character development) begins in Paris, where ex-prostitute Sandra (Asia Argento) reconnects with former lover Miles (Michael Madsen). But when their sadomasochistic reunion goes bad, another lover, Lester (Carl Ng), and his wife Sue (Kelly Lin), help Sandra escape to Hong Kong, where she assumes a new identity, even as she finds herself in exponentially increasing danger (along the way, Sandra tangles with, among others, a character played by Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon). The last act plays like a would-be Johnny To crime drama, with guns, drugs, and double-crossings (actress Lin is a To veteran), but Assayas lacks the flair for this kind of filmmaking. Intimacy has always been one of his specialties, but Boarding Gate feels like an exercise in detachment despite Argento's earthiness—for all the skin and sex on display, the film itself creates no real heat. Still, given Assayas' standing as an international director of note, this should be considered a strong optional purchase. (K. Fennessy)