Canicule

Canicule has the distinct aroma of tax write off and trip to France for Lee Marvin in one of his last and least films of his career.

Marvin plays American bank robber Jimmy Cobb who is on the run and now in France. The French authorities want this guy bad, they're even armed to the teeth. The beginning is a homage to Sam Peckinpaugh and The Wild Bunch with a shootout on the Paris streets where a whole lot of people get themselves killed in a botched attempt to take Marvin.

Lee's on the loose with the loot from a bank job that was obviously committed in America because it's in dollars as opposed to francs. But he manages to get to the Normandy countryside where he falls into the hands of a family of farmers who've got their own ideas about him and his loot and his reputation. And by no means is it unanimous.

Canicule is a French attempt to make an American style gangster film and they're not bad at it when doing things like Lemmy Caution with American expatriate Eddie Constantine. This one could have used the real Sam Peckinpaugh however directing this mostly French cast of players with Lee Marvin and Tina Louise. The dubbing and editing is hardly first rate. Marvin is in bad health which the camera plainly shows.

As another reviewer stated Gorky Park is a far better film. That and Death Hunt are the last two really great films Lee Marvin made.

This film was just downright depressing for me as a sleaze-movie lover and a fan of the great Lee Marvin. It had all the right elements, but the director, Yves Boisset, really screwed this film up. I blame him for everything that is wrong with it. His direction is so sloppy and third-rate I couldn't even tell what the hell was going on half the time. It could have been an interesting, if somewhat disturbing, black comedy. As other reviewers have stated, there are similarities between this film and Marvin's Prime Cut, but that film found a good balance between the repulsive and the humorous. This one fails on almost every level. It isn't even worthy enough to go into detail of its flaws. Also, Lee Marvin is totally wasted in this film. Once the first 5 minutes are over he is given absolutely nothing to do. Boisset had this incredible actor in the twilight of his career to work with. He could have made it into a sort of Last Great Film for the man, a study of a bad guy at the end of his life played by an actor famous for playing bad guys near the end of his life. Instead, that honor goes to Gorky Park. But I guess none of that really matters as Marvin was very sick during the making of this film, and you can tell. He seems tired, bored, and physically he looks haggard and ill. You can practically see his skull through his skin. This is NOT the way you will want to remember this great actor, so please, if you like Lee Marvin, do yourself a favor and honor his memory by never ever watching this movie. You have been warned.

Watch the two movies together for an example of a good film and a bad one with the same themes. No one is good in this one, and that goes for the acting as well as the morality. The family is depraved and watching Lee Marvin go through his 'take the illegal money, eye the women, escape the pursuers' bit is incredibly boring.

Skip it. A real waste of film, despite the VanGogh beauty of the golden fields of southern France.

This is essentially a trash film that luckily does not take itself too seriously. It is well aware of its nature as entertainment and uses themes familiar from such films as "Deliverance" and "The Hills Have Eyes" in a sort of parodic context.

It features a family living in rural France where the father is a brutal and violent pervert, his brother is same but worse, the son (about 10) is following on the same track and the father's sister is a nympho. Key in lots of tasteless moments (the clubbering to death of two Swedish (topless) campers, the suicide of the grandmother when they threaten to take her to old folks' home, the spending spree of the 10 year old kid in a cathouse and so on)and what you have is a fairly entertaining exploitation picture with a European touch.

You know whether you'll like it or not! Definitely not for the fans of Lee Marvin...

Canicule appears to be an attempt to portray all of humanity as depraved, degraded or, perhaps more aptly: dégueulasse. It never lets up and every single character is simply horrible. The scenes of the wheat fields are gorgeous but the rest is as dirty as dirty gets. I suspect that everyone involved in this production came to regret having helped to make this thing a thing. If you like hyperviolent films, you might delight in this one. Otherwise, I'd advise staying away.