Gángster a la fuerza

For a number of years now they have fed us movies about the adventures of mutant superheroes (o.k., I admit I have seen and enjoyed one or two of them). This was preceded by the surreal Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Van Damme-decade (also called the eighties), with action-flick actors whose muscle mass far exceeded their acting skills. Before that, there was Dirty Harry and a wild selection of anti-heroes of all sizes, shapes and colors. But when, exactly, was it, that real men disappeared from the screen? The event that caused the extinction of such dinosaurs as Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin, Lee Marvin, Humphrey Bogart and the like must have been the counter-culture of the sixties. But what a loss it caused. We had movie-stars who were real, gentlemanly (sometimes), cool, human and funny as well as ugly but sexy and we went and replaced them with a bunch of guys in a mask and cape (and I don't mean Zorro).

Luckily we all have our VCRs and DVD players and blockbuster and amazon and are able to enjoy movies like Les Tontons Flinguers, one of the funniest, coolest and yet silliest movies of all time. Every actor a character, every dialogue a gem, every scene a revelation about how to make it look easy. Go see this film before you even contemplate to watch Spiderman III!

Les Tontons flingueurs is a real master piece! Audiard was a genius writing in "green language" (la langue verte, slang from 50's/60's full of sharp metaphor) its really irresistible.... Unfortunately this movie cannot be translated, too bad it deserve at least 10 oscars! for acting / senario / directing / etc... JP nyc

It was one of the greatest french comedies.

Dialogs were from Michel AUDIARD, but you must listen them in French.

It's theses dialogs which have made the notoriety of this movie. Five great actors are these "Monsieur GANGSTER" (Lino Ventura, Francis Blanche, Robert Dalban, Bernard Blier and Jean Lefebvre).

The greatest scene is when these five gangsters are drinking alcohol in the kitchen.

It's one of the funniest movies I've seen. If you don't speak french, it's more difficult to understand dialogs because translation is often different that original language.

Forty year later, I love always this film "cult".

Excuse me for my poor English.

This French film is a marvel for its dialogues, they are, unfortunately, and like most French comedies, completely untranslatable into another language. Not only is it humorous expressions, but in addition, a number of expressions are comical in their employment against, by transforming nouns into adjectives or the reverse, by the use of expressions that do not match social milieu of the characters through the use of games typically french words without equivalence in another language. Most situations can be understood only if we know the French life, so it is normal that this cinematic gem have only limited success outside the French public.

What is so special about this movie ? Its density... It lasts about two hours, and you don't have any time to breathe, because of the intelligence, and the spirit of every quote. It is a shame that there are no exemples of quotes from it on this site, it would make you laugh just to read them. Under the appearance of a classic dark detective movie, it is one of the funniest comedy ever made. The only thing is that, to keep the atmosfear, you ought to see it in original version (french). But, for Audiard and his humor, for Launtner and his inspired direction, and, most of all, for the actors (especially Bernard Blier) everybody in the whole world must see it at least once. One of the greatest french movies ever made (and God knows the quality of the french cinema) !