Dernier domicile connu

Lino Ventura is simply perfect as this noir hero, too professional to rebel against the absurdity of his job. But why would they have him wear a small hat? The big broad-shouldered, former pro wrestler, Lino Ventura in brown-over-black 1970 style (remember Shaft?), OK, but who wears a hat in 1970? It makes him look like Inspector Clouseau. In the book Francis X. Kerrigan wears a dust jacket, OK this is the overused private coat, but keep it simple, in tune and in genre.

Fortunately the story is good, it's a sharp and clean police procedural and it shows that José Giovanni loved it. He loved that it displayed a stubborn officer walking his beat in the midst of general hostility against police. It was really fashionable to criticise the police around 1969 and Giovanni is happy to drive the point home more than once, most prominently in Paul Crauchet's monologue, but generally in the absurdity of Lino Ventura's assignments. Subtlety is definitely not Giovanni's forte but here it blends well with the simple police procedural.

All in all this could have been a tremendous modern noir with a better director (Melville, Sautet). The result doesn't show important directorial choices. Camera work and editing are average, and sound editing is poor while François de Roubaix's score would have been sufficient to carry most of the images. In the end you will feel as if the movie simply vanishes from your memory while you were really rooting for Ventura and Joubert minutes before.

An undercover policeman goes trough Paris to find a man whose testimony is the pivotal point to convict a murderer. Good action film, with very good use of editing and music to create tension, however the acting and plot seem to make it a middle ground affair.

Lauded Writer/Director, Jose Giovanni's classic 70s policier 'Dernier Domicile Connu' is, perhaps, one of the more charismatic French thrillers and arguably remains one of the most influentially hard-nosed policiers of the period. 'Dernier Domicile Connu' excitingly initiates many of the signature street-tough dynamics playfully exaggerated in later landmark thrillers like 'Dirty Harry'. A gritty Gallic precursor to the infinitely more lurid poliziotteschi, that violent mainstay of Italian exploitation so popular during the especially turbulent political unrest of the early 1970s.

Enigmatic, brutally efficient cop Inspector Lionetti (Lino Ventura) suddenly has his stellar, albeit controversial career irreversibly tarnished by some shady internecine political machinations, finding himself humiliatingly demoted to arresting sleazy, cinema-stalking perverts. Lionetti's new female partner, the young, naive, Jeanne Dumas (Marlene Jobert) makes an appealingly sensitive counterpoint to Lionetti's brutalist approach to police procedure. There can be little doubt that a more resplendent union of amiably mismatched cops would be hard to imagine! Unfortunately, this once novel trope is zealously appropriated with infinitely less guile today. Lionetti & Dumas become embroiled in their increasingly fraught, apparently hopeless quest of locating a key witness in a tabloid-splashed murder trial who eluded discovery for 5 years.

'Dernier Domicile Connu' remains a vital, meticulously plotted example of an especially compelling, beautifully performed, emotionally rewarding 70s crime thriller. Not only expressing a clear mastery of the form but rewarding in its many delightful narrative subtleties, amusing quirks and myriad idiosyncrasies. The sublime cinematic chemistry of charismatic screen icon, Lino Ventura and angelic, Joubert provides additional lustre to their richly detailed characters that you care deeply for. Jose Giovanni's gripping crime classic also features one of maestro, Francois de Roubaix's finest, ear-wormingly brilliant scores that funkily completes a stunning ensemble of creative filmmaking excellence.

First of all, this is the first time I have watched a Lino Venture movie, so seeing it with new eyes has perhaps conferred it a special shine. But it is truly a very beautiful movie shot in a 1960s Paris in which only the cars have changed over the years. But the beauty also applies to the cast of actors and to their sensitive acting.

Lino Ventura is the fallen cop who doesn't bare a grudge and is dedicated as ever to his job, landing him into a painful fist fight with some thugs, and dealing chivalrously with his bright-eyed assistant Marlène Jobert who truly delivers as a newcomer to the job of crime fighting, aptly portraying both excitement and disillusion. The supporting cast, good and evil, deliver very well and accurately depict Paris' diversity (often through gritty character depictions and photography) 40 years back.

The plot flows well, sometimes interspersed with dream sequences which are beautifully rendered. Never cheesy (like so many movies of the time), well paced and acted, truly a great cop movie which has aged very gracefully.

Ventura is the seasoned cop who gets punished by his boss and transferred to a secondary precinct and Jobert the idealistic trainee, who must support him during a relentless chase.

A key witness to a mafia crime disappeared five years previously and the guilty mafia boss may get acquitted without the witness evidence.

With five days to go before the end of the trial the unlikely couple run around Paris, trying to find the witness and betting everything on retracing his daughter, a pale, sick but remarkable girl who left an impression on whomever met her.

Unfolding before the digital era, the investigation takes place in the field, which means hundreds of schools, chemists and doctors visited. All this, while the mafioso's gang is following closely, eager to eliminate the witness before the police finds him.

The story is filmed in the suitably melancholic autumn season in rainy Paris and enhanced by suitable score. The twist at the end came unexpectedly to me, but it makes a lot of sense. Very good, no frills, believable story.