Professional party crasher Antoine (Guillaume Canet, LA FIDELITE) is a night owl. He lives at a health club (his belonging are stored in a locker and he sleeps next to the pool by day) and he runs various scams to get into exclusive parties. When a bouncer that he has a running conflict with points out the limousine of the "King of the Night" Jordan, Antoine namedrops Jordan to get into a huge party given by reclusive millionaire Von Bulow (Jean-Marie Winling). On to his game, Von Bulow offers Antoine a million francs to find Jordan who, like Antoine, prowls the city's popular dives; but for very different reasons. Along the way, he meets Violaine (Asia Argento) whose name she points out is made up of the words viol (rape) and haine (hate) who it turns out is not the mysterious Jordan's girlfriend but his sister who is also a night owl who may be warning off Antoine or tempting him into danger.

The feature directorial debut of actor Antoine de Caunes (Chabrol's THE COLOR OF LIES), LOVE BITES is an entertaining diversion but never really settles down long enough to establish whether it is a horror film, a quirky neo-noir, or a black comedy so the finale falls flat. Despite the number of S&M and fetish clubs and elements of incest, rape, blood drinking, drugs, dog fighting, and pornography, the film only ever lightly flirts with the idea of transgression but De Caunes' direction is assured however the string of set-pieces are in themselves well-handled. Canet (who recently became a director himself with MY IDOL and the well-received thriller TELL NO ONE) comes across well initially but his character is too subject to the machinations of the wandering plot to make a definitive impression but Argento (who also made the jump to directing with SCARLET DIVA) is well-cast and compulsively watchable in vintage underwear (Violaine mentions that the bra she is wearing during her first encounter with Antoine is the same kind that Janet Leigh wore in PSYCHO). Vincent Perez (QUEEN MARGOT) has a small cameo.

Eric Cotenas