Film Review
After a distinguished career as a police inspector at the Sûreté
nationale, Roger Borniche achieved further notoriety with a series of crime
novels closely based on his professional experiences. Their release
coincided with a massive surge in the popularity of the crime-thriller (
policier)
genre in French cinema, so it's no surprise that many of them were turned
into movies within months of hitting the bookstands. Of these,
Flic Story (1975) and
René la Canne (1976) are
the most memorable Borniche adaptations, two of the slickest crime movies
of the decade, distinguished by their gritty realism and seductively stylish
production values.
L'Indic is by far the least satisfying screen adaptation of a Borniche
novel, although it was helmed by a director, Serge Leroy, who had an impressive
track record in the thriller genre. Leroy had garnered acclaim for his
earlier thrillers -
La Traque (1975),
Les Passagers (1977),
Attention, les enfants
regardent (1978) - which brought a fresh and distinctive edge to the
modern crime movie, with an accompanying sense of menace that was both chilling
and strangely alluring.
L'Indic, by contrast, is a bog-standard,
policier that shows depressingly little of its director's innovative flair.
It abounds with the glum complacency that settled on the thriller genre and
hastened its demise in the mid-to-late 1980s.
A lacklustre script (marred by wafer-thin characterisation and
an off-putting surfeit of clichés) would have dampened the efforts
of the best of casts, but inflict this on a mediocre cast and the results
were unlikely to be impressive. It was perhaps brave of Leroy to cast
two relatively unknown actors who were both better known for comedy in the
principal roles, but, thanks mainly to the weak screenwriting, both actors
seriously come a cropper and fail to distinguish themselves.
Daniel Auteuil (known at the time for such facile comedies as
Les Sous doués) looks
painfully uncomfortable in the role of a redoubtable and scheming police
inspector (Bruno Cremer would have been an infinitely better choice), and
there is precious little sign that the actor would go on to much better things
in the course of the decade (which he did, after his breakthrough performance
in Claude Berri's
Jean de Florette).
Thierry Lhermitte was a more experienced actor with a higher profile, thanks
to his association with the comedy troupe L'Équipe du splendid and their
hit films such as
Les Bronzés
(1978). Lhermitte was, like Auteuil, more at home in comedic roles
and rarely convinced in straight dramatic parts, unless he was served by
a good script and a reasonably competent director. As a hardened criminal
he is totally unconvincing and he fails to engage either our sympathies or
our attention.
Pascale Rocard barely has enough screen presence to be noticeable, and the
rest of the cast are just as indistinguishable - just ill-defined shadows
in a hazy narrative that lazily drifts along like a stray dinghy on the open
seas. To be fair,
L'Indic doesn't quite plumb the depths that
the French policier descended to in the 1980s but neither is it particularly
memorable. It's just a routine crime drama suffering from an extremely
bad case of anaemia.
© James Travers 2019
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
From the moment he sees Sylvia for the first time Dominique Leonelli cannot
take his eyes off her. She is mourning at the funeral of an aunt.
He is powerfully drawn to her and invites her to dine with him. He passes
himself off as a businessman, whereas in fact he belongs to a ruthless crime
syndicate and is the right-hand man of the Corsican gangster boss Ange Malaggione.
For some time, Inspector Bertrand has been working to smash Malaggione's
criminal network and by gaining Sylvia's confidence he sees a golden opportunity
to do just that.
After explaining to Sylvia that her seemingly respectable boyfriend is in
the pay of a master criminal, Bertrand tries to persuade her that she should
become his informer. The young woman isn't convinced and, ignoring
the danger to herself, she continues seeing Dominique, hoping that she can
convince him that he should give up his life of crime. Bertrand is
not a man who can be thwarted so easily. With or without her agreement,
he intends using Sylvia to betray her boyfriend, regardless of the consequences
for either of them...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.