Maigret se equivoca por última vez

"Maigret Voit Rouge" is the last of the Gabin-Maigret trilogy, and unfortunately the least given how strong and memorable the first installements were. Gabin is still the same,:serene, confident, efficient, taking the shortcomings of his job like a pro and sometimes like the old wise man he became with age. I did enjoy the film to the degree that I became familiar with Maigret's routine, police procedurals and capability to handle new investigation techniques according to the situation. I liked the way the film confronted Maigret to American gangsters insisting that they belonged to a new breed of criminals to which French police shouldn't try to get mixed with... unfortunately, the villains don't live up to that reputation, and the film doesn't hold as well as the other despite a good third act.

Here's the problem with the film, unlike the first opuses, it doesn't follow the whodunit structure... though "Sets a Trap" didn't leave much suspense on the criminal's identity near the second act, there was some remaining shadows and clouds of uncertainty to clear and we were literally hooked to Maigret, driven by a stressful but enthralling interest. The second film was even more powerful as it featured a plot à la Agatha Chrisite and culminating with the gathering of all suspects before the big reveal, the soul of a mystery film is to keep the secret long enough to captivate, the audience, leaving enough latitude so we can process our own thoughts and wait for the big reveal that must come as a shocker no matter how prepared we are. It's a game played between the storyteller and the viewer and in the first two films, the third one doesn't have a shocker.

In fact, it couldn't afford one, as it's not a mystery film a simple gangster film, and an average one at that. It starts with a bunch of Americans first shooting a man and for some reason taking him to the car, with a witness consisting of a second-rate police officer named Lognon (Guy Decomble) the first immersion. I had a problem with that scene, I didn't think it was shot well. Did the gangsters intend to kill or kidnap? It's not very clear and given the number of bullets the target they got, either ways, they were incompetent. The second problem (and a big one) is the casting of Michel Constantin. He's a good actor and has a great screen presence, intimidating and effective for the villain, but dammit, was the budget so tight that they couldn't get an American actor? Having Constantin dubbed by an American with that typical nasal voices you hear in old newsreel or Looney Tunes parodues were awkward and never struck as natural.

The problem is that these gangster flicks aim for a minimum of realism and no matter how hard I try to overlook that problem, whenever he opened his mouth, I cringed... I don't think it was also fair to the actor who occasionally let a few French words slip through his mouth as if he was tired to move his lips without uttering a word. So the film is a decent thriller but there are many shortcomings in the execution, maybe because the villains weren't that interesting to begin with: one of them is the nicest guy and has an infatuation with a girl named Lili (Françoise Fabian) who hosted them after the kidnapping, and the other is a boxer who keeps opening his mouth to say nothing special. I didn't care for these Americans, too superficial or uninteresting, I guess they were intended as caricatures of masculinity made in Hollywood, but it's a rather superficial vision that doesn't male for a believable social comment.

But the film has a few characters who save the day, apart from maigret, Lognon makes for a great punching ball inspiring Maigret the kind of lines you never know if they're mockeries or compliments, he was touching in his ineptitude, there's the Sicilian bartended Pozzo (Vittorio Sanipoli) whose interactions with Maigret contained a great deal of lines that you never knew if they were threats or advice, and finally, the laconic and cynical doctor (Robert Armontel) who doesn't say much in the film, only to implode his Diogenian views at end, you never knew if he was serious or really pulling Maigret's leg. And honorable mention to the American Diplomat who allowed Gabin to speak English... and is it me or Gabin has a good English?

The film gets better at the end when things are explained and we can figure what happened and why but someway, the heart wasn't exactly the same, the film was made four years after the second, Gabin's age was starting to show and although he was good in this film, I could feel the fatigue behind his trademark detachment. How ironic that the film ends with him refusing to handle a case, leaving it to Lognon, so he would take a nap. Maybe there's some self-referential truth in that final line.

Police inspector Guy Decomble is sent out to deal with pilfering from a market. On his way, he finds a man who has just been shot by three men in a car. When he goes to find help, another car picks the injured man up. Then Decomble is grabbed by the shooters, Americans who question him and beat him unconscious. In his third appearance as Maigret, Jean Gabin has only a pair of American sunglasses to lead him to the answers.

It's clearly a programmer, taking advantage of Gabin's excellence and Georges Simenon's unlikely detective stories -- this is adapted from one of them. Still, Gabin puts in a fair day's work. He's one of those performers, like Ann Sheridan, who are clearly concentrating on whatever they are doing at the moment, whether it's bussing dishes or removing the band from a cigar. Gabin's Maigret is a man who asks questions, gives orders, and that's it. It may seem barebones, but one of the reasons I stopped reading Simenon's books is that his Maigret is exactly the same.

All this results in a tight movie with a mystery which makes so little sense that only Maigret can figure it out. At least, he says he has it figured out before having someone else explain.

Stodgy crime film, worth seeing almost exclusively for Jean Gabin's presence. Maigret is a master at playing cat-and-mouse with the people he is interrogating - however sometimes he plays word games with them for so long that by the time the mouse is caught in the trap, the cheese is already moldy. One fun burst of fighting comes very late into the film. **1/2 out of 4.

Jean Gabin had previously played the indefatigable commissaire Maigret in two other films. "Maigret Sets a Trap" and "Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case". Directed by Jean Delannoy, these films were poetic psychological studies, full of atmosphere and complex, interesting characters. In sharp contrast, the third Gabin Maigret film "Maigret Sees Red" is a fairly straightforward crime picture, the kind of movie Jean Gabin was famous for and the kind of movie you'd never expect to see credited to Georges Simenon. This is doubtlessly down to Delannoy's replacement, writer/director Gilles Grangier who made his name directing pulpy actioners with Jean Gabin.

The plot concerns a trio of American hitmen who arrive in Paris and leave a trail of bodies in their wake. Why are they here? Who are they after? Who hired them? These are the questions Maigret and his team of detectives are tasked with finding out while racing against time to stop the gangsters before they kill again. But, unbeknownst to Maigret, the hitmen don't even trust each other and soon little quarrels turn into all-out bloodshed.

This film has the name Maigret in its title and his creator Georges Simenon in the credits but no characteristics associated with his work. For one, there are no intriguing characters or commentary on the human condition here. Just a no-frills police procedural mixed in with gangster film elements lifted straight out of American B-movies. The trio of hitmen is a truly ridiculous group, sporting overdone American accents and the kind of attitude school bullies display on the playground. Especially awful is Michel Constantin, looking like a gorilla in a tuxedo and dubbed over by possibly the worst voice actor in the world. These guys wouldn't look out of place only in a "Naked Gun" movie.

Thankfully, the rest of the film works quite nicely. Especially any scene in which Jean Gabin takes charge. His Maigret is an absolutely superb creation and even though he doesn't get a chance to show off his acting as he did in the Delannoy films, he still brings an irreplaceable, commanding presence to the role. He also has a suitably wry sense of humour and frequently during the film his eyes take on an imminently likeable mischievous glow. He plays wonderfully well against his co-stars especially Guy Decomble as the incompetent Inspector Lognon and Paul Carpenter as a CIA agent.

Gilles Grangier does a capable job and the film moves at a remarkably snappy pace. Rarely stopping for character development helps, I suppose, as the film zooms through its fairly complicated plot. I'm not entirely sure if and how the whole thing hangs together, but the ride never stalled.

I do have to admit that I'm not a fan of gangster flicks. I don't care for criminals and mobsters, so I found "Maigret Sees Red" to be something of a drag and a disappointment after the two brilliant and thoughtful Delannoy films. However, those who do have a taste for these kinds of actioners will surely find this to be a well-executed if average entry in the genre. There's nothing to make it particularly memorable, but it works and for some folks, that's more than enough.

If this Maigret fails to be exciting, blame it on the script (or the novel).When deprived of his social comments,of his psychological dramas,in a nutshell,when he does not portray the social customs of the period,Simenon's novels are nothing but trite gangsters stories.Apart from Maigret himself (played by Gabin the best Maigret that ever was,but elsewhere),there's simply not one interesting character on the screen. Grangier displays respect for the audience though:American gangsters speak English -and not French with an accent as it was often the case in his colleagues' works at the time-;for that matter,hats off to Michel Constantin ,the French tough guy par excellence ,who plays a Yankee and whose English is perfect.

But frankly ,a disappointment.