Monica la mitraille

No, I wouldn't consider this one of the best films to come out of Quebec ever...it just isn't so....

The film takes an awful lot of liberties that are certainly not based in fact at all.

I grew up in Montreal during those days......the city did have it's share of interesting characters, mafia, and other gangster elements including the Dubois brothers gang (French Mafia if you will), the West End Gang with Frank Dunie Ryan who was assassinated in 1984, the Catroni family and on it goes.

Machine Gun Molly, as stories go, was rather a side show but one that attracted the imagination of many of lesser means in Quebec....indeed she was a sort of folk hero....some would say, in the same manner as Richard Blass was.

Entertaining.....somewhat, exceptional....no!

The star-studded cast delivers in spades and the story is perfectly rendered. This is a classic of Canadian film, better than Bonnie and Clyde. Céline Bonnier shines as Monica, more than holding her own against fellow Québec cinematic heavyweights Patrick Huard, Roy Dupuis, Marc Labrèche and omni-talented Rémy Girard. The story itself refers to real-life Québec bank robber Monica Proietti. She robbed 20 banks, mostly credit unions, of over $100,000. Her life was the subject of a 1968 musical comedy also called Monica La Mitraille. However, the 2004 film is based on a book by Georges-Hébert Germain originally called Souvenirs de Monica, written in 1997.