El gran golpe

"le Gros coup" is an absolute jewel in French film noir, I never heard of it before. Hardy Krüger's destiny after a serious car accident is fascinating, he really deserves the best after having lost everything. He meets Emmanuelle Riva who won a fortune in that crash. How this venomous meeting will finish? A tense suspense till the end. With great cinematography and settings (who will recognize at the beginning a future new town?). In this hunt for money, Krüger and Riva are extraordinary. An important discovery available on DVD (in superb print).

Jean Valère started his career with a good drama ("la sentence") and worked his way down ("la femme écarlate" is a nothing film, "mont-dragon " ,arguably singer Brel's lousiest movie, "baraka" and this one)

"Le grand coup" suffers from a confusing screenplay (the heroine's behavior does not make much sense,and the final is absurd ),a bad pairing , bad acting direction and poor script.

There's absolutely no chemistry between the principals:Emmanuelle Riva was one of the most demanding actresses of the French cinema and she's brilliant when she 's given good material to work with ("Hiroshima mon amour" ,Franju's movies, "Kapo" and recently "amour" ) .As for poliglot Hardy Krüger ,he's often underrated (see"Cybèle ou les dimanches de Ville d'Avray ", "le franciscain de Bourges" )and he was one of the rare German actors (along with Romy Schneider) whose voice is heard in the French movies.

Unfortunately,the Riva /Krüger couple does not work ,sadly unsupported by the rest of the cast ,including sports reporter Roger Couderc :the hero was a football player whose career was ruined by a car crash involving Riva .

A profound beautiful film noir, offering to Emmanuelle Riva the opportunity to create a fascinating portrait of vulnerability and cold justice.

Hardy Kruger as victim, blackmailer and , again, victim is just admirable for the fair image of cunning honesty, brutal greed and perfect target.

Sure, impressive remains the last scene.

Why a German actor (Hardy Kruger) with a poor pronunciation of French should be picked as the male lead of this French-spoken film, beats me. Why, with so many fine male French actors who could have much more convincingly played the part, he should get the part, beats me. Why HK portrays a soccer player when he could not kick, let alone control, a ball to save his life... her... beats me. It sets the mood for a completely unbelievable and confusing mess of a film.

Script and direction by Jean Valère. As noted earlier, script is hard to believe. Direction scores a little bit better, if you leave Kruger's amateurish performance out of it. Of course, you cannot do that, so direction has to get a poor mark, too.

Pedestrian cinematography. Fighting sequence between Willes and Arland is just so poorly done that I cannot think of harsh enough adjectives to label it.

Stars for Emmanuelle Riva's performance (despite ludicrously bad support from the other lead); the surprisingly ironical and yet moral ending; and credible sexual rapport between leads.

Waste of time, to be honest.