La menace

Corneau's career is a bit of a puzzle. He started with thrillers and is now making sombre mood pieces like Nocturne indien and Tous les matins du monde that feature career making performances (see Anne Brochet in the latter). La menace starts off as a tight thriller with a harried Yves Montand trying to balance wife and mistress, loses some momentum in the middle as fumble-foot detective Balmer sniffs around the principals, then picks up for a slam-bang finish in the twisting mountain roads of southern British Columbia.

Montand and Carole Laure, the Canadian singer-actress, supply the tension after the sudden death of Marie Dubois (who is the best performer in the picture). Although it's not as good as the classic Série noire with Dewaere, this is a watchable film.

A truck driver in balance between two women, the death of one of tem after the confrontation against the other, the risks to be accused by murder and his solution reminding a sort of version of Count of Monte Cristo. After a chain of cues for save his girfriend, when a seems easy to have the best soution, a terrible confusion and a revenge not very different by one from the first part of fim.

Beautiful job of Carole Laure and Yves Montand, impressive performance of Marie Dubois.

Tension and large embroidery of clues and pure American end.

Impressive, maybe more for action scenes than for the story itsef.

I really liked this nervous and intense film, which is at the same time a thriller, a drama and an action film. The main roles are very well interpreted. Montand is perfect in this type of character, which is reminiscent of the one he interprets in "police python 357". He plays a real genius, and the sense of detail which he uses to deceive the police works perfectly well, but will also cause his downfall. By staging his own death, he goes a little too far, and a grain of sand the size of a heavy truck that shouldn't have been there, will derail his perfect plan. I admit that the ending is not very likely, but so what? Does a movie need to be likely to be good? A film must provoke emotions and make you feel, travel, dream ... "The menace" perfectly fulfills the contract! The suspense and the tension don't leave you from start to finish. And if you love canadian landscape and big trucks like I do, you will be even more deligthed! You should definitely watch it!

With hindsight,Alain Corneau's best works are his second (Police Python 357),the third one (this one) and the fourth effort(série noire).The first two are unpretentious suspense movies which are quite gripping.THe last one is a different matter:much more ambitious in scope ,Corneau ,abetted by the late Patrick Dewaere,peaks and shows his limits the same way.Subsequent works will be overblown sagas (Fort Saganne),boring arty works (tous les matins du monde) and blatant commercial duds (le prince du Pacifique).

"La menace" and "POlice Python 357" look like each other.Both feature Montand ,trying to get away with an inextricable situation.In both movies,in order to fool the POlice,he accumulates false pieces of evidence,clues made up from start to finish,you name it...Enough is enough!Sometimes the viewer is fed up .It's more obvious in "la menace" than in "Police Python 357" because the pace is too slow,and the movie suffers from an inexpressive Carole Laure.MINOR SPOILER:It's really too bad that highly superior Marie Dubois should disappear so early in the story(after 25 minutes!)END OF SPOILER

Montand was not that much exciting an actor either.Best male part comes from Jean-François Balmer,playing a die-hard Colombo ,but with a clean raincoat.The ending is rather unusual and nicely absurd;But ,should the Canadian long-distance truck drivers see this movie,they might not agree with the picture of them Corneau gives to the world.