Director: Jean-Paul Salomé, 15, 120min

Stars: Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Déborah François

On general release

This film resurrects the Dirty Dozen idea of recruiting a bunch of reluctant or misfit folks for a dangerous mission. The difference here, though, is that the operatives are all attractive women rather than hard-bitten thugs.

Marceau’s sniper and François’ explosives expert are joined by the slutty Depardieu, the Italian-Jewish Maya Sansa and the showgirl Marie Gillain and sent to rescue a British geologist from Occupied France before he tells the Germans about the planned D-Day invasion.

It alternates exciting suspense-action, with stirring cliché that would have played better in 1943, the odd smart line (the girls coerce a shady character to their cause with the line: “start the war siding with the Germans, end it with the Brits – what could be more French?”) with bizarre sillinesses (a very funny nude suicide). With period fashions, trains, escapes and sacrifices, it offers more serial-style fun than Charlotte Gray, but doesn’t match the genuine feeling of Black Book.

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