Le gang des otages

That's one of the three non comedy films that director Edouard Molinaro made, besides UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE and LES AVEUX LES PLUS DOUX. This French director was the biggest comedy maker of the French film industry, besides Philippe de Broca, Yves Robert and George Lautner. So this one is a crime drama which is however a bit smoother than the two other ones; I mean it is more drama than crime in the way he describes the characters. It is a plot in the mood of this seventies period, three young folks, two men and a woman, more in revolt against the society than tough and brutal gangsters. A real good movie indeed, very moving. The night scenes in Paris, escape from police sequences, made me think of UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE, from the same director, but in another mode, more exciting and less drama. I have always had the greatest tenderness for this film, its atmosphere, music score from the magnificent Michel Legrand, and the Daniel Cauchy's character, so ambivalent. The scene where he kills one man and a woman surprises me so much, because he is not shown as a bloodthirsty killer.

Edouard Molinaro,a cinema De Qualité artist ("La Mort De Belle" from Simenon remains his best ever effort) directing a Pre-Nouvelle Vague actor (Daniel Cauchy "Bob LE Flambeur" ) and intellectual pure Neo Nouvelle Vague actress Bulle Ogier,all this didn't bode well.Maybe today,people who are fond of gangsters movie,the likes of "Mesrine" (the first version and its recent remake) can have a look at this story of three hoodlums (two men and a woman),which was inspired like the other "hero" by real facts ,and which showed them as rebels with a cause against an unjust society.Released in 1972 ,when the political/social movie was trendy and was,par excellence ,THE French genre of the seventies.