La Revanche (1981)
Directed by Pierre Lary

Film Review

The wave of feminism that came crashing into popular culture in the early 1980s has much to answer for, and not least of its offences is a slew of idiotic French comedies such as La Ravanche.  Here's a film that presumably sounded good when sketched out on a sheet of toilet paper but ended up looking like a cross-between an accident in an Albanian joke factory and a misogynist's two-fingered salute to feminism.  The main offender is the plot, which has a hard job on the credibility front with its depiction of three supposedly intelligent modern women resorting to the most drastic of measures in the name of women's lib.

The characters could not be more unconvincing if they had an extra three arms, spoken fluent Welsh and were forced to spend the entire duration of the film jumping up and down on pogo sticks.  It takes the combined efforts of Annie Girardot, Victor Lanoux and Claude Rich to salvage this ramshackle comedy (directed with more enthusiasm than skill by Pierre Lary, former assistant to Luis Buñuel no less), but whilst there is some occasional fun to be had along the way, La Revanche is unlikely to rate highly in anyone's list of French comedies.  The fact that the storyline has been recycled at least a dozen times since (and rarely improved upon) doesn't help much.  Pro-feminist, anti-feminist or just plain silly...?  You decide.

Film Synopsis

Jeanne Jouvert is far from pleased when her husband, a police commissioner, takes the credit when she wins a prize for her detective novels.  Anne Beaufort has even more reason to be angry with her spouse, when she learns that he is a gunrunner.   Determined to have their revenge against a cynical, male-oriented society, the two friends join up with another woman, Sylvie, to carry out a hold-up...