Le voleur et la menteuse

The thief: a gangster on the lam, is waiting for a boat which is to sail away from this harbor which is a cul-de-sac.

The liar :a young woman he meets in a restaurant run by an unprepossessing owner , tells the story of her life based on the screenplay of a movie she was to make (but was rejected :because she did not want to sleep with the writer?)

They fall head over heels in love. The convict who has just escaped from jail wants to keep her out of the jam ,but after a night of desperate love, she refuses to leave him.

The cine buff will notice an updated situation of the thirties cinema,the likes of "Quai Des Brumes" ;but ,in spite of their talent, neither Gérard Darmon nor Mathilda May are Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan .And anyway, even in a supporting part, Philippe Leotard ,with his swollen eyes and his bloated face (overindulgence in drink) effortlessly blows them off the screen .

As a thriller ,the movie is very static (even the last scene is devoid of action: probably an artistic choice),and makes up for it by being extremely talky : it begins with an interminable soliloquy of the driver who takes the hitch-hiking escapee,and carries on with endless conversations between the ex-prisoner and the actress down on her luck.Besides ,a waiter is always cracking jokes his pals do not find in the least bit amusing.