Adieu l’ami (1968) - film review

Dino Barran and Franz Popp, two ex-combatants of the Algerian War arrive in Marseilles, hoping to start a new life.  Shortly after their parting, Dino is persuaded by a strange young woman to join in a bizarre scheme – to return some stolen bonds to a vault in her company’s basement.  On the night on which Dino is to execute the plan, he learns that a vast fortune in bank notes has just been deposited in the safe.  Who should then appear but his former comrade Franz Popp – who is intrigued to learn what Dino is up to.  The two men take it in turns to try to open the safe, by working their way through all of the lock’s combinations, having agreed that whoever opens the safe will decide whether to take the money or not.  The venture proves to be more hazardous than either man had imagined.  Having managed to get themselves locked in the vault and then effected a miraculous escape, they come across the body of a guard – shot dead with Dino’s gun.  All is not what it seems…

Two cinematic icons of the 1960s – Alain Delon and Charles Bronson – join forces in this stylish French  thriller which, despite some glaring plot weaknesses, isn’t a bad example of its genre.  The film pays homage to classic noir thriller in a number of ways – most obviously with a tense middle section which, whilst resembling a homoerotic fantasy, successfully appropriates the stylistic elements of the traditional heist movie (cold metal-walled interiors, harsh lighting and a claustrophobic sense of isolation).  There’s also a reference to the classic gangster film, with the morality of film’s two principal characters compared with that of the police – the conniving duplicity of the latter set aside the sense of honour of the former.

Delon and Bronson work together surprisingly well (no apparent clash of egos) and their on-screen rapport is perhaps the film’s main selling point.  The performances of these two great actors vastly overshadow the contributions of the rest of the cast – even Brigitte Fossey comes across as weak and unsympathetic.   The fault lies in the script, which fails to develop the secondary characters and relies far too heavily on absurd Avengers-style plot contrivances.  Despite this, Adieu l’ami is a likeable film – providing it isn’t taken too seriously and you’re not tempted to keep a tally of the plot holes as you watch it.

© James Travers 2007

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