Anthony Zimmer is a genius career criminal wanted by police around the world, and his clever methods have allowed him to launder money through a web of dummy corporations that file lawsuits against firms outside France. He remains perpetually elusive, his appearance wiped clean after a recent plastic surgery, while the formidable Russian mafia known as the White Collar Barons keeps pressing the hunt. A sharp, dogged detective named Akerman is closing in, aware that Zimmer will risk everything to reunite with the lover he left behind, Chiara Manzoni, who hasn’t laid eyes on him since the operation.
Anticipating a reunion, Chiara Manzoni arrives at a restaurant and sends Zimmer the plan to “pick up” a stranger whose general build matches his own, a ruse meant to mislead his pursuers. She boards a TGV high-speed train and selects François Taillandier, a bland 38-year-old translator who reads detective novels and has been humiliated by a wife who left him more than six months earlier. This unfamiliar woman fascinates François, making it hard for him to concentrate on his yogurt or his book as the journey unfolds. In Cannes, Chiara invites him to stay with her at the Carlton Hotel and even hands him a watch bearing Zimmer’s name on the back, a token that deepens the illusion.
The morning after, François awakens to danger: two hitmen are on his trail. He bolts in panic, seeking sanctuary at a nearby police station where Lt. Camel Driss becomes his ally, offering clothes and a room at a local hospital. The investigators uncover that Chiara checked out of the Carlton that day, and Driss’s belief in François’s story grows after a bullet hole in the hotel room confirms a violent disturbance now occupied by the White Collar Barons under their ruthless leader, Nassaiev. That night, Driss is brutally murdered, severing a crucial lifeline for the fleeing man.
Fleeing narrow escapes, François collapses into a fragile reunion with Chiara, who leads him to a secret hideout in Nice. There, she explains that she set the whole trap because his physical build matches Zimmer’s, and she instructs him to lie low for a few days. Yet the next day François defies the plan, stepping out to press Chiara for answers outside the Hotel Negresco. His precautions prove futile when he’s captured by the police and interrogated by Akerman. The agent drops a crucial truth: Chiara is an undercover DGDDI agent. That night, Akerman covertly meets with Chiara to discuss the rendezvous Zimmer proposed in a classified ad, and he makes it clear that while Chiara will attend the planned meet, he will keep a watchful eye on François.
With François in custody, Akerman’s team arranges a surveillance operation: they park their truck and position snipers near the rendezvous point—the old Zimmer mansion. Chiara infiltrates the mansion and confronts the White Collar Barons and [Nassaiev], who threaten to kill her if Zimmer does not appear within five minutes. François, released from the confines of the truck, rushes into the mansion to save her, only to be pinned to the ground by the attackers. When Chiara exposes the ruse—claiming François is not Zimmer—the snipers respond, dropping the Russian mobsters to the ground.
As the police clean up the scene, François finally reveals his true identity to Chiara: he is, in fact, [Anthony Zimmer]. She urges him to flee, but he declines, even while understanding that Chiara is an agent. He retrieves a hidden notebook from a secret safe—containing his banking details—and leaves it by the front door as a final gesture, signaling his willingness to abandon a life of crime for the woman he loves. Rather than betray him, Chiara chooses not to disclose his real identity to the authorities, and the two escape together, stepping into an uncertain future side by side.
> “pick up” a stranger whose general appearance matches his own
In the end, the story threads together desire, danger, and loyalty as Anthony Zimmer and Chiara Manzoni choose affection over pursuit, blending a tense cat-and-mouse chase with a quiet, intimate decision to rewrite their fates. The narrative stays faithful to Zimmer’s calculated gambits and Chiara’s undercover obligations, while highlighting the human costs of a life spent evading capture and the transformative moment when love becomes a compelling motive to change everything.
