This film made in 1997 was the first French crime movie since LA BASTON, directed by Jean Claude Missiaen in 1983, fourteen years earlier - LA BALANCE was from 1982 - and in between this was the pure desert in this genre. In 97, I admit that there was Alain Corneau's LE COUSIN, the only Alain Chabat non comedy feature. THis will remain one of the best Xavier Durringer's work, in his crime genre trade mark, with LES VILLAINS and PARADISE BEACH. Good french gangster film, with its own atmosphere. Gerald Laroche is also outstanding, although his acting skills may be annoying for some folks. The only weak point of this film is the ending moral; mixing Francis of Assisi with gangster was totally ankward for me, nearly lousy. I will finish by reminding you that this very good piece of work is a transition, the last stop in the desert before the arrival, four years later of the great, the gruesome Olivier Marchal, the new Jean-Pierre Melville, with his first feature GANGSTERS. And after him, many more directors will dare come back to the crime genre. Since the eighties, the TV crime stories industry overfed up the audiences who did not want to pay money in theaters for again watching cops and investigations. Of course this scheme of gangsters talking after a heist - not shown - can remind RESERVOIR DOGS or even JEFF, a French film from 1968.
