Pas si méchant que ça

In one of his earliest roles, Gerard Depardieu plays the son of a carpenter who runs a small business in a quiet Swiss town; when his father has a stroke and Depardieu has to keep the business going despite poor sales, he starts robbing post offices and banks to pay his employees. It may sound a little like Bonnie and Clyde or Robin Hood, but the Swiss writer-director Claude Goretta seems almost ideologically opposed to conventional excitement (although there IS one great scene of Depardieu running and crashing through a glass door). The film doesn't really go anywhere, but it coasts along on its pleasant locations and the charm of its three leads, of which Dominique Labourier shines brightest (who the hell would cheat on Dominique Labourier? By far the film's hardest-to-take development). **1/2 out of 4.

The screenplay is,by and large,not derivative ;after his dad had a stroke, and was relegated to wheelchair,to live a vegetative life (he could not even speak anymore),his son has to resume the management of the small cabinetmaking workshop .And to pay his little staff becomes a real problem ,so,out of the blue ,he turns into a gangster ,robbing banks and post offices:it's very unexpected ,nothing predicted this sudden new development ,which is all the more effective ;the couple ,making love near the tree where the stealer hid his loot ,and mistaking him for a peeping tom ,is also a good idea; the show for the benefit of the holiday camp which features an idiosyncratic re-telling of William Tell's story ,complete with music , also does the trick.

On the other hand , Marlene Jobert's character is not so convincing : her behavior may seem implausible as this clichéd girl-tired-of-run-of-the-mill-life turns into a poor man's Bonnie Parker ;Jobert was Shirley McLaine -type and ,had she been given funnier lines ,she would have made wonders .But Swiss director Claude Goretta is an intellectual director, whose works are often lauded beyond their station,and too much is given over to his heroes 'frames of mind and soul-searching (the dull discussions , and the diary of the heroine)in which is finally a trite adultery story

Not bad, by a long shot, but not as remarkable as critics often claim.