I'll have to defer to the plot posted on this site because this is only available in French with no subtitles at all. The movie is about a particularly seedy private detective (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) called "The Octopus", who actually acts more like a gangster. He goes to a seaside town to collect some money and spends most of the movie beating people up or getting beat up himself. However, somebody is killing a lot of the people he's trying to collect from and he senses a conspiracy may be afoot. I guess the detective's nickname comes from his long arms, but I thought it might come from his numerous underworld helpers and contacts who seem to be a bunch of skid-row drunks and various other assorted lowlifes.
The one bit of glamor in his life, meanwhile, is his very hot, bisexual girlfriend (Clotilde Corault, )who spends most of the movie either naked or squeezed into various skin-tight outfits. She's a pretty tough cookie herself though--when she's surprised in the bathtub by three thugs, she holds them at bay with a big gun, dripping wet and dressed only in her birthday suit. "The Octopus" can't begin to satisfy this sexually voracious female, but he still finds time to take up with another, much more demure small-time prostitute (Julie Delarme)connected to the youth gang he is shaking down.
i'm not that familiar with Jean-Pierre Darrousin , but he's very good in this role, and he manages to look even more cool the more he gets beaten up (kind of like Jack Nicholson going around with a big bandage on his nose for most of "Chinatown"). The movie kind of reminded me of the British gangster classic "Get Carter", but while "the Octopus" is definitely hard-boiled and tough, he's more comical than menacing. Clotilde Corault is a pretty big actress in France these days, but outside of France, she's probably often confused with Julie Delpy, who she greatly resembles. She is REALLY sexy in this. Julie Delarme is more obscure. Her most famous role might be "Love, Sex, and Math", but she's pretty good as a young girl in over her head in the world of crime and sordid sex. The rest of the cast are appropriate sleazy--you can almost smell the booze and sweat coming off them.
This definitely needs some subtitles, but it is an entertaining movie.
