Netflix has kicked off its 2025 movie year with “Ad Vitam”, a French action thriller from director Rodolphe Lauga. As with so many movies of its kind, the pieces are there for a fun early year reprieve from the end of the year awards seasons crunch. If you look at it that way I suppose “Ad Vitam” fits the bill. At the same time it’s easy to see where it could have been so much better.

“Ad Vitam” (translated “for life”) is both perplexing and frustrating. Within its lean 98 minutes is a potentially exciting movie that unfortunately bookends an overly long and energy-zapping extended flashback. The movie’s fast start quickly grinds to a halt as Lauga, along with his co-writer and star Guillaume Canet, attempt to build some kind of backstory. But it falls short both in substance and in execution.

Canet plays Franck, a former gendarme who was recently dismissed from duty following a tragedy under his command. When we first meet him he’s working as a building inspector, scaling the bell tour at the Sacre-Cœur Basilica in Paris. One afternoon he and his very pregnant wife Leo (Stéphane Caillard) return home to find their apartment broken into and ransacked – the second time in two weeks. Franck is hesitant to take any action which raises Leo’s suspicions.

The story takes a dramatic turn when a group of heavily armed assailants bust into their apartment and take Leo hostage. It turns out that Franck has been hiding incriminating evidence that implicates powerful people in a grand conspiracy. After taking a pretty bad beating, Franck is told by the lead henchman (Johan Heldenbergh) that he has four hours to retrieve and deliver the evidence if he ever wants to see his wife again.

But then the movie takes an abrupt turn as Lauga jumps back ten years into a lengthy flashback. It shows Franck’s acceptance into the gendarmerie where he meets and eventually falls for Leo. It also introduces his best friends and partners, Ben (Nassim Lyes) and Nico (Alexis Manenti). All of their relationships feel real enough, but they aren’t that compelling. At least not until we finally see the tragedy that led to Franck’s dismissal.

After a good 30-40 minutes the movie finally switches back to the present day as Franck races against the clock before ending with a fun yet admittedly absurd action set piece. It’s not the most satisfying ending and it does little to punctuate what unfortunately is a threadbare story. There are glimmers of chemistry and Canet, Caillard, and Lyes certainly have the needed physicality. If only they had more interesting material to work with.