Último Domicílio Conhecido

In a nutshell, I'd call this police drama 'pretty good'. But not nearly as excellent as some reviewers have made it out to be. On the plus side are the standout performances of tough cop Lino Ventura and his rookie assistant, the enchanting Marlène Jobert.

In the early 1970s Jobert was probably France's most in-demand actress, so lovely and so endearing that it was hard not to fall in love with her. I succombed immediately on seeing her irresistible performance in René Clément's classic Rider on the Rain, where she is perfectly paired with the redoubtable Charles Bronson.

Also on the plus side are many gorgeous glimpses of Paris, by day and by night. On the minus side though, is the contrived drama of the movie. Like many French police films of the period, it tries too hard to be more than a police story. It strives to be a meaningful essay on modern society, morality and lost illusions.

Still, it's pretty good, and if you're a fan of directors like Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn and Elia Kazan, you'll probably find a great deal to like in Dernier domicile connu.

But if your taste runs more toward Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, you can skip this one and go directly to Rider on the Rain.

An undercover policeman goes trough Paris to find a man whose testimony is the pivotal point to convict a murderer. Good action film, with very good use of editing and music to create tension, however the acting and plot seem to make it a middle ground affair.

Lino Ventura is simply perfect as this noir hero, too professional to rebel against the absurdity of his job. But why would they have him wear a small hat? The big broad-shouldered, former pro wrestler, Lino Ventura in brown-over-black 1970 style (remember Shaft?), OK, but who wears a hat in 1970? It makes him look like Inspector Clouseau. In the book Francis X. Kerrigan wears a dust jacket, OK this is the overused private coat, but keep it simple, in tune and in genre.

Fortunately the story is good, it's a sharp and clean police procedural and it shows that José Giovanni loved it. He loved that it displayed a stubborn officer walking his beat in the midst of general hostility against police. It was really fashionable to criticise the police around 1969 and Giovanni is happy to drive the point home more than once, most prominently in Paul Crauchet's monologue, but generally in the absurdity of Lino Ventura's assignments. Subtlety is definitely not Giovanni's forte but here it blends well with the simple police procedural.

All in all this could have been a tremendous modern noir with a better director (Melville, Sautet). The result doesn't show important directorial choices. Camera work and editing are average, and sound editing is poor while François de Roubaix's score would have been sufficient to carry most of the images. In the end you will feel as if the movie simply vanishes from your memory while you were really rooting for Ventura and Joubert minutes before.

Lauded Writer/Director, Jose Giovanni's classic 70s policier 'Dernier Domicile Connu' is, perhaps, one of the more charismatic French thrillers and arguably remains one of the most influentially hard-nosed policiers of the period. 'Dernier Domicile Connu' excitingly initiates many of the signature street-tough dynamics playfully exaggerated in later landmark thrillers like 'Dirty Harry'. A gritty Gallic precursor to the infinitely more lurid poliziotteschi, that violent mainstay of Italian exploitation so popular during the especially turbulent political unrest of the early 1970s.

Enigmatic, brutally efficient cop Inspector Lionetti (Lino Ventura) suddenly has his stellar, albeit controversial career irreversibly tarnished by some shady internecine political machinations, finding himself humiliatingly demoted to arresting sleazy, cinema-stalking perverts. Lionetti's new female partner, the young, naive, Jeanne Dumas (Marlene Jobert) makes an appealingly sensitive counterpoint to Lionetti's brutalist approach to police procedure. There can be little doubt that a more resplendent union of amiably mismatched cops would be hard to imagine! Unfortunately, this once novel trope is zealously appropriated with infinitely less guile today. Lionetti & Dumas become embroiled in their increasingly fraught, apparently hopeless quest of locating a key witness in a tabloid-splashed murder trial who eluded discovery for 5 years.

'Dernier Domicile Connu' remains a vital, meticulously plotted example of an especially compelling, beautifully performed, emotionally rewarding 70s crime thriller. Not only expressing a clear mastery of the form but rewarding in its many delightful narrative subtleties, amusing quirks and myriad idiosyncrasies. The sublime cinematic chemistry of charismatic screen icon, Lino Ventura and angelic, Joubert provides additional lustre to their richly detailed characters that you care deeply for. Jose Giovanni's gripping crime classic also features one of maestro, Francois de Roubaix's finest, ear-wormingly brilliant scores that funkily completes a stunning ensemble of creative filmmaking excellence.

Inspector Marceau Leonetti (Lino Ventura) gets demoted after arresting a young kid whose father has connections. He is assigned to a small town where the biggest crime is helping a kid locate his stolen pigeons and, later, working alongside newbie Jeanne Dumas (Marlène Jobert) to bust perverts in movie theaters. Their careers take an upswing when, unbeknown to Leonetti, his former boss assigns him the futile task of finding a witness in 8 days before a major murder trial. What his superiors didn't count on was Leonetti's tenacity in finding this uncooperative witness and the fact that the accused also has some men out with the same task. This is the third film from director José Giovanni (writer of THE SICILIAN CLAN) and it proves to be a pretty grim affair. There is a lot of commentary on the rat (or should I say ant) race as Leonetti is just a cog in the wheel of justice (at one point Jeanne event comments on his unending searching, asking if he is a robot). Audiences will probably feel the most connection with Jobert's character as she is tackling the assignment with a fresh belief in "the system." Ventura is awesome in the lead role of the seen-it-all vet and he has a great fight scene toward the end. You'll probably see the end coming, but it still has quite an impact thanks to a matter-of-fact presentation by Giovanni.