Il sostituto

NOTE: This review should be read in conjunction with the one I have written for "À mort l'arbitre!" (1984).

The French cinema has not dealt much with football, and stories about it. Few films have been made about it, and are more on the sociological than the athletic. "Coup de tête" is one of them.

Written by famed director Francis Veber ("La chèvre", "Les fugitifs", "Le dîner des cons"), the film follows a young football player and factory worker named François Perrin (Patrick Dewaere), whose greatest fault is his irritability. Due to this element of his character, he gets thrown out of the team and the factory - coincidentally, they have the same president - and gets falsely accused for rape. Luck shines for him when he is chosen to play for his old football team that is lacking players during the French cup. Through his contribution, they win the game, and Perrin sets out to revenge his old rivals that put him in prison.

In the film, football serves more as an occasion to demonstrate the behaviour of the local authorities to the young players. Perrin is at first regarded as nothing more than a scum of the society, but this changes as soon as he wins. He is given countless gifts and perks, but he, like a modern Count of Monte Christo, only has revenge in his mind. The authorities, factory owners, industrialists, even garage owners, are the heads of small-town, close societies where every faux pas is deplorable and everyone thinks for themselves. The presidents of the team also belong in this society and only regard the players as means of profiting than as real athletes. Bribery, hypocrisy, everything is used to force the young star into submission. For, if he really engaged in revenge, he would do it by ridiculing these prominent members of the society, something that would damage their status irreparably.

It is, thus, an oxymoron that a film whose heroes are so stuck in the past has such a modern-sounding - for the standards of the time - score. Composed by famous singer Pierre Bachelet, it mostly consists of one instrumental, repeated during the feature. Its guitar-driven sound seems very suited to the era - it sounded like a milder version of a Bay City Rollers piece - and its playing during Perrin's confrontation with the authorities serves as a perfect contradiction between the old France, the heroes of the film, and the new France, the people who made it.

The joy of the sport, so often emphasized by real-life players and fans, is almost nonexistent. The players are subjected to constant pressure in order to win the Cup and so every sense of satisfaction that may have existed quickly disappears. The chants they sing before every game also serve the aim of winning, motivating the players to perform well.

In stories of real football stars, frequent is the classic "from zero to hero" story, in which a player from a poor background becomes famous due to their exceptional talent. Perrin, portrayed excellently by Dewaere, is also one of these zeroes to heroes. Only his talent saves him from prison, and gives him the authority to punish his enemies without facing the consequences. The fact that we don't see what happens afterwards shows the hero's real intentions even more. It is evident that he will continue enjoying fame and its trappings, but this is of no interest for the film. The real aim of the film was to satirise the old authorities of the French rural society for which the sport was no more special than investing in a store.

All in all, despite examining - and criticizing - some negative aspects of football concerning the club presidents' behaviour to the players, "Coup de tête" shows more the society in which the movie's local football teams existed than the sport itself. Still, it is well worth watching for its capable cast, that personifies the members of this society representatively, and its infectious score by Pierre Bachelet.

Warning: The following text may is written in horrible English. Sorry. The movie is about a talented food-ballplayer, who is thrown out of the 2nd Team cause he wounded the Starplayer of the first team in a training-game. Cause the coach is also the boss of the factory he's working in, he gets fired soon. More problems are coming. Then police sent him innocently in prison. He raped a woman, they say. Then, when his old team needs a player they take him out of prison. He runs away to find out the reasons for all this. After understanding everything he plays THEIR game, just waiting for his revenge... To be honest till now I have seen only 4 movies by Patrick Dewaere... But again I have to say that he is my favorite french actor and this movie is not only critically it's also extremely funny. I hope i will see more movies of him, because sadly ,in general German television prefers to show superficial movies. So WATCH IT. If you have already seen it.. DO IT AGAIN..

Francis Veber hasn't only written and directed for himself, he has also penned scenarios for the others. Thus, he well served Edouard Molinaro for "l'Emmerdeur" (1972), Pierre Granier-Deferre with "Adieu Poulet" (1975) and Jean-Jacques Annaud with this "Coup De Tête". Shot before more ambitious plans would come to his mind ("le Nom De la Rose", 1986 or "l'Ours", 1988), this film ferociously demystifies football and as it's a very popular game in France, it was a refreshing, necessary gesture even if the film didn't do very well at the French box-office for evident reasons: it lingered on the other side of the picture.

From the outset with the choice of the scenery (the film was shot in Auxerre, a famous town for its football team) the first steps of the plot and the role of the characters, the authors' intentions are clear: to seal an alliance between entertainment and onslaught. This is what underpins the film. Through François Perrin's (Patrick Deweare) fall and rise, Annaud and Veber vent their spleens on the unscrupulous leaders of the football club and the shameless actions or schemings they adopt to preserve their interests or their players'. Violence, bribery, blackmail and the manipulative power they exert towards the players, the supporters even the population make the object of a specific, eloquent demonstration to amount to a simple, efficient denunciation. And when Stéphanie reveals what lies beneath the false rape accusation that hangs over Perrin, the attack is doubly intense. The plot deftly incorporates these doubtful actions and is helped by a laid-back Patrick Deweare who brews revenge in his glory hour. Perhaps Veber and Annaud should have more insisted on his bad temper.

Another tawdry aspect of football will be explored by Jean-Pierre Mocky in his "a Mort l'Arbitre!" (1984): blind fanaticism that can grab rabid supporters and lead them to murder.

François Perrin is a talented footballer who also has a talent for not going along to get along. In the small fictional town of Trincamp, the bourgeois factory owner and the petit-bourgeois shop owners are all obsessed with the local football club's success. Irresistible force meets immovable object and conflict ensues: that's basically the plot of Coup de tête, which can mean 'header' in football or a 'headbutt' in a fight. Perrin falls out (literally) with the club's loutish star player and is framed for a rape he did not commit. After being imprisoned on the basis of false testimony, Perrin is released to save the day in a big match, which qualifies the team for the finals and sets up his getting even with the townspeople.

The examination of the group of powerful men (as they all are here) who run the town and the football club is perceptive and unusual to see in a film. The sexual politics was perhaps even in its day a bit more problematic. The assault for which Perrin is imprisoned is not shown on screen, but we are set up to believe him capable of it by a slapstick assault on his girlfriend on a scaffold. Later Perrin breaks in to the assault victim's bedroom and pretends to rape her since he's already been convicted of the crime. When he relents she is overcome by his charm and a sense of the injustice done to him to join forces with him.

Perrin has his revenge in the end, but we're also left wondering whether everyone who called him a salaud didn't also have a point.

A wonderful and little-known film, starring the late, great Patrick DaWaere as a hot-headed young man who works in a French factory town where the town's morale is intimately linked to the football (i.e. soccer) team. To be on the team and work in the factory are all there is in this town.

When the star of the team commits a crime, the town's most powerful citizens decide that someone else must take the blame, because they can't afford to lose the culprit from the team... it would be bad for business. So they scapegoat the hot-head, instead. But he returns to wreak his revenge... or rather, to outwit the guilty into wreaking revenge on themselves for him.

An unusual film for Annaud, a typically brilliant piece of scripting by Veber, and a thoroughly engaging performance by DaWaere as the wronged man. Whatever happened to this movie?