"Read My Lips" plays like Bonnie and Clyde go to France and start a Fight Club. The romance noir from French director Jacques Audiard is a heist thriller with teeth.

The plot follows Carla (Emmanuelle Devos), an unappreciated middle manager come secretary in a Paris construction firm. Invisible, disrespected and made fun of by the rest of the office staff, the homely hearing-impaired 30-something is a depressed and brooding mess.

When her boss asks her to hire an assistant to help her with daily duties, most of which include throwing away half finished coffee cups and making copies of construction proposals, Carla turns to a temp agency. But good help is hard to find and the temp agency sends Paul (Vincent Cassel), and recently released ex-con with no marketable skills whatsoever.

Carla hires Paul and they quickly fall into a pseudo-sexual psychological relationship. The pair finds unlikely companions in each other as they help each other put their lives in order by reciprocal illegal favors. Paul is eventually hired/indentured by a nightclub manager/wannabe gangster. When he discovers that the manager and some other shady associates are using the club to move large amounts of valuables, Paul and Carla plan a heist.

"Read My Lips: is a well-scripted movie. Though the couple has a relationship, it doesn't solidify itself until later in the film. The movie avoids over simplifying by presenting both Carla and Paul as stubborn characters who won't let themselves be helped by anyone.

The movie also uses sound and audio effectively to build suspense. The audience will view scenes as Carla hears them, with her hearing aids turned on or off. As the pair begins to live both at Carla's office and the nightclub the mood shifts from the sterile white lights of the corporate world to an insomniac Kafkaesque nightmare.

And even though the movie uses Carla's ability to read lips to advance the plot, it doesn't rely solely on it. Lip reading is treated as one more tool a thief's black bag.

Dramatically, the change in the characters of both Carla and Paul is realistically portrayed. As time progresses Carla not only behaves more assertively, she also appears so. Similarly, Paul migrates from a disheveled bum sleeping in a supply closet toward a more refined mastermind.

The movie contains a lot of realistic violence. While it still pales in comparison to most blockbusters, "Read My Lips" treats a punch in the face like a punch in the face: it hurts. More squeamish viewers might want to think twice about this movie.

There are a number of subplots that seem to be thrown into the script for convenience – such as stories about Paul's parole officer and Carla's best friend that never seem to work into the main plot beyond their apparent usefulness when they cross paths with the heist. The movie appears to waste about 15 or 20 minutes developing these only to throw them away on relatively minor roadblock in the heist plan.

Overall, "Lips" is a delightfully dark romantic thriller certain to please audiences with an addiction to suspense.

(3.5 out of 5 shamrocks)

Contact C. Spencer Beggs at beggs.3 @nd.edu

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