Il était une fois un flic...

This movie is a mixture between gangster movie and comedy. Georges Lautner created a typical french comedy with quite a good portion of violence, drugs, sex and sarcasm.

Michel Constantin plays Campana, a commissar at the drugs bureau of Paris police. He gets an undercover job in Nice to catch an Italian-french mafia boss. As he slips into the identity of a gangster's brother, who was already killed, he has to play the role of a loving husband with child - something that is not so easy for a confirmed single like Campana. Unfortunately American killers chase behind the Nice mafia clan too, in order to get control of french drug trades to USA.

Constantin played Campana very cool, a silent hero that struggles against the police in Nice, the Nice mafia clan, the American killers and American police from the Bureau against Narcotics and dangerous Drugs (BND). There are a lot of sarcastic elements that bases on the French - American "friendship" - very funny for all Europeans.

All in all a great movie to have fun and a good time. Set in scene perfectly by Lautner.

This movie has a very conventional story without big surprises. In spite of that the duell between the main Charakters is very engrossing, so watching this film is never a waste of time.

After an intriguing offbeat movie where he directed Rita Hayworth ,"La Route de Salina" and where he showed some ambition -it happened several times in his career-,Georges Lautner returns to Georges Lautner's style: a good old Comédie à la Française .This one is rather pleasant and the talented Michel Constantin and the brat make a nice pair.As for Mireille Darc, not exactly my kind of actress, she is passable.The screenplay is solid,the lines are often funny and the kid is of course a naughty boy.

If you want to have fun,this movie is your cup of tea.But if you are a Bergman fan,well..

With the exception of LE PACHA, LE SEPTIEME JURE and LE PROFESSIONEL, gritty dramas or crime thrillers, George Lautner gives here a film which kind will forever be his trademark, as were LES TONTONS FLINGUEURS, LES BARBOUZES, LA GRANDE SAUTERELLE, NE NOUS FACHONS PAS. Same script writer, dialogue provider - Michel Audiard.... Francis Blanche, Mireille Darc, Venantino Venantini.... One of the first and unique film in which Michel Constantin is the real lead; before this there was MISE A SAC and José Giovanni's LA LOI DU SURVIVANT and also LES ETRANGERS, and after this one, there will be Serge Leroy's LE MATAF. Besides those ones, Michel Constantin was the main supporting character; for instance LA VALISE, co sttarring Jean-Pierre Marielle. Mireile Darc is exquisite and since fifty years, I still wonder why Alain Delon's name appears in the cast. Because if you search for your hankershief fell on the floor at the wrong moment, you'll miss Delon. Only three seconds on screen.

French director Georges Lautner had always remained faithful to his image as a director of comedy films.It is with a lot of nostalgia that fans remember films such as 'Les Tontons Flingueurs', 'Le Guignolo', 'Joyeuses Pâques' etc.However,his impressive filmography is also full of films where he combined comedy with crime in order to give viewers something more to enjoy than mere laughter.'There was once a cop' is one such film which makes good use of French city Nice as the setting for a comedy film with shades of action about a tough cop who transforms into a family man in order to get desired results.Director Georges Lautner ensures that there is a good balance between action, comedy and suspense in his film.For this reason,he extracts good performances from actors namely Michel Constantin,Michel Lonsdale and Mireille Darc.He also got invaluable support from screen writer Francis Veber for devising comedy scenes.Lastly,this is a very useful film to understand the mechanism of French police especially in the context of special missions.