Film Review
Towards the end of his illustrious career, Jean Gabin lent his talents
to this formulaic policier, the last occasion he would be cast in the
role of a police inspector. Within spitting distance of his
seventieth birthday, Gabin is manifestly too old for the part of a
senior police chief actively in pursuit of a homicidal madman but his
sober presence adds a badly needed jolt of realism to a film that is
too content to coast along on a sea of well-worn
clichés. Director Denys de La Patellière has
none of the flair or aptitude for the genre of his contemporaries Henri
Verneuil and Jacques Deray and so
Le
Tueur looks pretty insignificant when placed alongside the more
impressive offerings from these masters of the classic French film
policier.
What
Le Tueur does have to
make up for its run-of-the-mill scenario and insipid
mise-en-scène is a respectable cast, with Italian actor Fabio
Testi suitably cast as the deranged killer being chased across France
by some pretty clueless policemen. Testi somehow brings a touch
of old-fashioned romanticism to his characterisation, which is fiercely
at odds with his character's savagely bestial instincts, to kill or be
killed. Gérard Depardieu appears briefly in a few scenes
at the start of his career, and brings the film to life whenever he
does so, but the real star of the piece is Bernard Blier, superbly
authoritative as a police chief whose incessant wranglings with Gabin
over what constitutes appropriate police procedure provide an enjoyable
sideshow. Claude Renoir's cinematography gives the film a gloss
that partly undermines its realism, although Hubert Giraud's eerie
score (so perfectly evocative of the dark nature of Testi's mercurial
killer) helps to make up for that.
Le Tueur is by no means a classic
but it gave Gabin one last outing in the genre to which he was
admirably well-suited in his later years, and is all the more enjoyable
for that.
© James Travers 2014
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Next Denys de La Patellière film:
Les Aristocrates (1955)
Film Synopsis
Superintendent Le Guen thought he had seen the last of Georges Gassot, a
relentless serial killer, when he arrested him and had him placed behind
bars. But Gasso is a wilier bird than he had supposed and it isn't
long after being moved to a psychiatric hospital that the psychopathic criminal
escapes and goes on the run. With the help of his brother François,
Gasso manages to get as far as Marseille, with the intention of fleeing the
country as soon as he can. As he plans his escape to foreign climes,
the killer comes into contact with an attractive young woman named Gerda
and becomes instantly besotted with her. The girl's unwelcome pimps
are readily dealt with by Gasso. It's so reassuring to see that he
hasn't yet lost his penchant for cold-blooded murder.
Realising that escape from Marseille is going to be much harder than he had
thought, Gasso makes a hasty return to Paris. Once again, the redoubtable
Le Guen is on the killer's tail, more determined than ever to put him back
where he belongs - in the most secure prison that France can offer a maniac
of his calibre. The superintendent's somewhat brutal methods bring
him into immediate conflict with his new boss, François Tellier, whose
own ideas about modern policing merely arouse Le Guen's contempt. He
may be hovering on the threshold of retirement, but Le Guen knows how to
do his job better than any cop, and being a mule-headed Breton he has a tenacity
that makes it impossible for him to leave any job half-done. He will
get Gasso, if it's the last thing he does.
Assisted by his dependable and fashionably dressed second lieutenant, Campana,
Le Guen soon manages to get the killer within his sights, but by this time
Gasso is up to his old tricks, slaying anyone who gets in his path with casual
impunity. In what now feels less like a police manhunt and more like
a personal battle of wills, Le Guen resorts to the most contemptible form
of skulduggery, turning the killer's underworld associates against him in
the hope of hastening his capture. Gasso realises that his time is
fast running out, but the one thing he is certain of is that he will not
be taken alive. When Le Guen moves in for the kill, he has one last
trick up his sleeve...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.