Les Aveux les plus doux (1971)
Directed by Edouard Molinaro

Film Synopsis

Jean Dubreuil is a young man who finds himself in deep trouble when a seemingly straightforward attempt to rob a circus goes badly wrong.  Jean manages to get his hands on the booty, but his accomplice panics and badly injures one of the circus employees before they can make good their escape.  The next thing he knows Jean is in police custody, whilst his criminal associate remains at liberty.  Despite his plea of innocence, police inspectors Muller and Borelli are determined to extract the truth from the youth, and to do this they adopt very different approaches.

As Borelli plays the role of the brutal interrogator, hoping to intimidate Jean into making a full confession, Muller opts for a gentler line of questioning.  Neither approach works.  Jean remains stubbornly quiet, refusing to inculpate himself and reveal the identity of his accomplice.  The two police inspectors refuse to beaten and resort to more dubious methods to obtain the confession that they are now determined to hammer out of their victim.  The stick has gotten them nowhere, so now they resort to the carrot.  They make a deal with Jean: he will be allowed to go free so that he can marry his girlfriend Catherine, providing he confesses to the hold-up.

This time, reminded of what he stands to lose, Jean plays along, but matters become somewhat more complicated when the man attacked by his criminal partner dies from his injuries.  Now Jean isn't just a thief, he is also an accomplice to murder - a capital offence!  The interrogation resumes, but this time Jean is even less willing to cooperate with his police tormentors.  Now that the stakes have been raised by an order of magnitude, Muller and Borelli are more determined than ever to force a confession out of the young man, even if they have to beat it out of him...