La horse

A movie about a very simple but strong-minded man. Gabin is excellent in the lead role, as your typical annoyed, but sort of solemn old man who only cares about his duty to protect his family. The movie really does a great job developing and visually presenting his relationship with his children and grandchildren, he's in charge, and whatever he says, goes.

I love when a character can rule and command people simply through his mannerisms and the way he presents himself. Despite having decades on most of his family, and even the drug smugglers he finds himself in battle with, he always manages to be intimidating to them through sheer resilience and presence.

The way the movie is structured is handled very well, we start out with a crime thriller-esque plot where he takes turns fighting this drug smuggling gang, and the movie switches gears and sort of becomes a legal or investigative movie where we see how his family has been instructed to act in the face of law enforcement (don't say anything). And despite having those elements, the movie still manages to have a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes very dark, but mostly just situational humor that's very well done. And while it manages to be tense throughout, the comedy is wonderfully woven in, where it never feels phony or stale.

In a lot of ways, this film feels almost like an old-timey Western, and John Wayne being in Jean Gabin's role wouldn't be that shocking, but what this movie does differently is that it takes the 70s era realism and adds it to a very Western-esque scenario and plot to create something that is incredibly engaging. And like many Westerns, I really loved how the movie was presented and framed in its cinematography, with lots of wide shots with beautiful blocking, through simplicity. There's a shot after the drug smugglers attack his cows with their truck, and at the end of that scene is a beautiful shot of a dead cow in the foreground and the truck leaving in the background, showing the damage they left behind.

After watching a lot of Hollywood or American movies recently, I've noticed that I've grown tired of the lack of genuine nature and artificiality in these movies. This is why watching this movie was so refreshing, every element of this movie feels real and genuine, and the disturbing stuff that happens is genuinely shocking because it looks and probably is, real.

That's a movie where Jean Gabin played a character very close to his real life, because the great French actor as a peasant, besides studios lots, this was his life, his DNA, his purpose. He made movies only to buy lands and take care of his farm, his horses, his cattle. So, you see, this role was made for him. For L'AFFAIRE DOMINICI, it will be more or less the same. The family head among peasants, but of course in another formula. Here a bunch of hoodlums, drug traffic high scale gangsters, are dealing with ordinary but die hard peasants. This emphasizes on the contrast between those urban villains and the good countryside men. Typical French crime film form the late sixties. A cult film for Gabin fans. And the music score is fabulous too.

When he discovers his grandson, Marx Porel, has two hundred milion francs worth of heroin, Jean Gabin destroys it. Then the criminal for whom Porel has been holding it comes and demands the drugs and the man, and threaten his family and farm. Gabin shoots him, hides the body, sinks the crook's car in the swamp and sticks his grandson in the potato cellar. His cattle are stampeded and killed, his barn is burnt. Gabin gives his orders but no explanation to his family and workers, despite the police taking an interest.

This being a Gabin film, I was never in any doubt as to how it would turn out. Indeed, the idea of a multi-billion dollar mob of criminals going against Gabin is soberly funny. Gabin is quite believable as the stiff-necked, autocratic proprietor of a family farm in Calvados, just as he is in everything.

I had not known this film before, I ran into a photo of a helicopter which was a capture from it and I became curious. I am very happy I have seen this movie, it is one of the best I could see these last months. It is that kind of story of a very strong character, a man who feels responsible for his family and does whatever he can to keep the honor intact. Even though, at first, he thinks he can do it all by himself, he soon discovers that if one wants to help one's family, one needs the family's help. The main character, that of Jean Gabin, is the image of the old French farmer and landowner, who is subjected to his land and rules his home like a dictator. No one dares to talk back to him, or, if any does, the old man knows how to shut his mouth. And when a danger appears that threatens the family, he does not hesitate for a second to react radically. When the danger becomes even greater, Maurice uses the help of his sons-in-law, and I think this is the moment they finally become family. The last one who proves to be a member of the family will be Henri; found in his cellar by the police, he finds the exact words and action that discharge him and his grandpa in the eyes of the law, and in the last scene of the film, he accepts his status of a farmer, by accompanying his old men to work. All in all, I liked this film very much and I will recommend it to my friends.

Weak direction, sloppy photography, a script with more holes than Swiss cheese, and some rampant animal cruelty all make LA HORSE a mediocre and immediately forgettable flick.

An aging Gabin - solid performance, full of menacing looks - runs his farm and family with a shotgun and he thinks nothing of blasting away the gang of drug runners, and he keeps mum to police, who - thankfully - are not very persistent in their investigation.

Happy ending after plenty of corpses. Buy it at your peril!