Pour la peau d’un flic (1981) - film review

Once a regular cop, Choucas now works as a private investigator, using methods his former colleagues would revile him for.  One day, he receives a visit from an old lady, Madame Pigot, who asks him to look into the disappearance of her blind daughter.  Choucas accepts the apparently anodyne case but soon finds he may be in for more than he bargained.  First he is assaulted by a mysterious stranger and then Madame Pigot is shot dead just before she can give him vital information relating to her daughter.   Then, when he is set up for killing a police commissioner, Choucas realises that he has been caught up in a very deadly game of cat and mouse.  But who are his opponents and why are they so keen to have him killed…?

Iconic actor of the 1970s, Alain Delon turned his hand to directing in the 1980s, starting with this conventional action-packed policier in which he – not surprisingly – took the leading role.   Having previously starred in a dozen or so crime-thriller films, Delon would seem ideally placed to direct such a film – particularly when he had previously served under such distinguished masters of the genre as Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Deray and José Giovanni.   Delon the film director is not nearly as impressive as Delon the actor, but Pour la peau d’un flic is a respectable debut effort, and actually makes rather a good policier for its time.

Starring alongside Delon in this film is the young Anne Parillaud, a decade before she would become a cult figure for her leading role in Luc Besson’s thriller Nikita (1990).  Parillaud and Delon work together well, each bringing an unexpected self-deprecating sense of humour  –  a side which is rarely seen in Delon’s films (presumably because his directors thought it might tarnish the tough Delon image).

Although the film is generally well structured, it does ultimately get a little tangled up in its exposition – a fault typical of many French thrillers of this époque, as screen writers attempted to be even more clever with their plots.  Fortunately, there are plenty of treats to keep the spectator of average intelligence engaged and entertained – a charismatic male lead, a sexy female sidekick, a spectacular nocturnal car chase and, of course, loads of gratuitous body pulverising violence.

© James Travers 2003

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