Le choix des armes

Alain Corneau was considered as a director who could replace Jean-Pierre Melville's, I mean the new master of the crime film made in France. First there was POLICE PYTHON 357, LA MENACE, then SERIE NOIRE, and just after LE CHOIX DES ARMES. Corneau did not direct only crime dramas, but those ones were his best work, with also the DEUXIEME SOUFFLE remake (2007), three years before his death. Here, you have a perfect cast: Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu, Gerard Lanvin, Catherine Deneuve.... The story is not that usual, rather unpredictable and I particularly like Gerad Lanvin's ambivalent character, as a trigger happy brutal, ambitious, ruthless young cop.

.. of superlatives. This, the last of the three polars that Corneau made top-billing Montand, finds Montand retired from the mob and roughing it with Catherine Deneuve in a large country chateau where they breed thoroughbreds. Such an idyll can't last, natch, so, before you can say 'make my day, punk', enter Depardieu, hothead extaordinaire, on the lam and looking for a soft touch. Eventually we need the obligatory scene in which the ageing gunfighter dusts off the old six-shooter and wastes the wannabee new fastest gun, except, of course, that this isn't a Western but a very sophisticated and hugely enjoyable polar.It doesn't get any better than Montand and Depardieu (who had worked together earlier in Claude Sautet's 'Vincent, Paul, Francois et les autres' and would do so again in 'Jean de Florette') and with Corneau on bullhorn what's not to like. Post-war French policiers/polars are in a class of their own and provided your nose is in good working order the whiff of cordite can be identified at once as generated by Jean Pierre Melville, Alain Corneau, Tavernier, etc. This one is right out of the top drawer and would BE a top drawer on any screen it graced. Go see! Enjoy!

Alain Corneau began as assistant to Costa-Gavras so it is only fitting that as a fully-fledged director he should work with Yves Montand. This fine actor had previously starred in 'Le Cercle Rouge' for Jean-Pierre Melville and of the three policier/polar noirs that Corneau and Montand were to make this last one is the nearest to the Melvillian style, in terms of pacing, atmosphere, its depiction of the criminal 'code' and the wafer thin distinction between the gangsters and the guardians of law and order. This is very much a man's world and a pretty cold and brutal one it is at that.

Montand is Noel, a former underworld figure who has used his ill-gotten gains to finance an extremely comfortable lifestyle as a breeder of thoroughbreds but is obliged by an unexpected train of events to revert to the law of the jungle. On the other side of the coin is the deranged psychopath and prison escapee Mickey of Gérard Depardieu who is humanised only by his love for his child which mirrors Noel's love for Catherine Deneuve as Nicole, his wife. Although their backgrounds and social milieus could not be more strikingly different, both men have more in common than they realise and ultimately(SPOILER COMING) the orphaned child becomes the indissoluble link between them. A further contrast is offered between the old school police chief of Michel Calabru and the intense, trigger-happy, fanatical young inspector of Gérard Lanvin.

This is a well constructed piece with a measured pace that allows the characters to develop and with an utterly riveting second half. It is beautifully shot by Pierre William Glenn, tautly scripted by former critic Michel Grisolia and atmospherically scored by Philippe Sarde.

Nicole is assuredly not the most demanding role that Catherine Deneuve has been called upon to play but the simpatico between her and the magnificent Montand is palpable and helps the film to work. They had earlier worked together on the rom-com 'Le Sauvage'. Likewise there could not be a greater contrast between this and her recent collaboration with Depardieu, 'Le Dernier Metro'. He is larger than life here but always 'true' which is a difficult balance to strike and as usual brings his air of unpredictability. Many have lamented that with maturity he has rather 'let himself go' but when Montand, who worked with him three times, referred to him as 'THE actor of his generation', he wasn't far wrong.

... in France, of all places. Believe it or not, they actually showed this film on movie night in St. Martin de Re in southern France. I spent a few months there back in '83 as a temporary guest after an altercation with my book maker.

First of all, Catherine DeNeuve is delicious in this film, as always. Depardieu is superb, playing Mickey Le Dingue with a subtle touch that none of us were expecting. Guards and inmates alike, we cried at the sad parts and cheered on the criminals at the crime parts.

French prisons have gotten a lot of bad publicity of late due to the high suicide rate and the beatings or murders by the guards, and the knife attacks, and that's all true, but underneath the squalor and brutality and physical horror, there's beauty and art, and film and Mickey Le Dingue and Miss Deneuve. It was worth going to prison to see this movie.

With Melville's death, Tavernier and Corneau became the masters of French film noir, but the latter has the dreamlike mood that the genre really needs to be effective. Le choix des armes has many effective scenes (usually involving either Depardieu or Lanvin) but sometimes leaves us cold. There is a little too much exposition in the storytelling--why show us Montand and his buddy smashing up the gang lord's opulent house when there is no dramatic effect to be gained? Or the elaborate four-way car pursuit (did the budget allow for all those stunt-drivers, so Corneau thought Why not?).

The acting is mostly exceptional. The young Gérard Lanvin gives us a very frustrated young detective, Michel Galabru is his burnt-out superior, Richard Anconina plays a man trying to settle down to happy domesticity and failing, and Depardieu is simply great as Mickey le dingue, crazy and moving at the same time. The woman who plays Dany's wife with burning resentment takes over every scene she's in.