Police Python 357

first was Alain Corneau a fan of J P Meville?? in the film there is a scene where François Périer(the bad guy) looking at his shaving mirror, and adjusting his hat. and it reminds me of Melville's film "the samouri"

well the film is almost Yves Montand's monodrama, he walks as he walked in "the red circle",he shoots like he shot in"Z" only his old face has become older since then.. I admit he is not that type of hero----he is not looking very tough, he is no Belmondo or Ventura when he knocks down some guys in film , it's just ridiculous and unbelievable for me , oh , I shake my head and say that's not his job at all.. after all, do you believe the old ,senescent,grandpa could easily beat up a young lad who is apparently stronger and swifter than him?

Montand could have done more political thrillers , not action thriller which I think is his weakest strength

so the film fails

At his time, at least, Alain Corneau was guessed to fill the empty place that Jean Pierre Melville left in the French crime films genre. He was promising with this movie, and soon after with SERIE NOIRE and LE CHOIX DES ARMES. But after those, Corneau seemed to have chosen something else than crime movies. He will resume this genre with LE MOME - 1986- and LE COUSIN - 1997. His before last movie LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE remake - a real assumed tribute to Melville's cinema - will be his best work for me. Back to this one, the plot is however far fom Melville's atmosphere but strong, with a powerful Yves Montand's character. The character study is the most important element of this tremendous French crime movie. But it is strange to call this feature with the name of a weapon - but Olivier Marchal did it too with MR 73, maybe a tribute to POLICE PYTHON 357 - as if it was an action film - which is not, except of course in the last scene, the DIRTY HARRY link - because this is a pure suspense thriller with a very unusual plot. A young woman is killed by a police superintendant - her lover - who leads the investigation, and another lover of hers, also a cop, the second in charge of the investigation, who tries his best to spoil the investigation, without knowing his superintendant is the murderer.... So no one of them knows the other was the second lover of the young victim. That's absolutely unique, great!!! It could be a South Korean crime film, complex but riveting. It's surprising that this movie has not been remade since 1976.

After the death of Jean-Pierre Melville the French cinema lost his first exponent who dares mixing two avant-garde and opposing visions on movie industry as Hollywood and the groundbreaking French cinema, soon the cunning Alain Corneau filled out this empty space holding this niche with same premise, blending these academies in this polar.

Blatantly inspired in The Big Clock he hadn't the copyright this novel, so Corneau had implied a meandering screenplay to get his target, also mimicking Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry series, Yves Montand playing the already dead within character made a stunning performance side by side with his real wife Signoret and the bleak chief played by the outstanding François Périer, the eye-candy Stefania Sandrelli enlightens the movie to high level due her undeniable and unique beauty, the picture holds the audience in the chair since the early scenes until the ending, further totally restored in widescreen colorful format is priceless.

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First watch: 1996 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.

Great screenplay and some of the best actors the world has ever produced. Montand gives the concept of the 'lone wolf' police detective a whole new dimension of intensity and, most importantly, credibility.

When a typical Hollywood cop-heroe loses family, friends and pets to murder he is usually given his minute of grief. But when the sixty seconds are over, he pulls himself together, packs his gun and goes gleefully shooting up his enemies one by one.

Montand's Marc Ferrot, however, is really devastated - by his girlfriends murder, of course, but also by finding out that she had another lover.In his confusion and wrath he does not seek revenge but needs to keep going to find the real perpetrator of a crime where his fingerprints are all over the scene. Thus all his actions become unescapably logical. This is the main reason why this movie glues us to our seats but definetely not the only one.

The 'inside' joke here is that Yves Montand wears throughout the same jacket the Clint Eastwood wore as 'Dirty Harry'. This could have backfired badly had this movie laid an egg but as it turned out it is one of both the director and his leading actor's best efforts. No one writes in a vacuum, of course, and those with long memories will recall Charles Laughton asking Ray Milland to investigate a murder that he (Laughton) himself had committed and then making Milland the patsy. This in turn was echoed in Orson Welles' "Mr. Arkadin". No matter, we can always use one more outstanding thriller and this one fits the bill to a tee shirt or, if you will, jacket. Montand scores heavily, as you would expect, as the cop who is unaware that his boss is sleeping with his (Montand's) girl friend. When, one night, a quarrel ends in tears the boss, also unaware that he shares a lover with his best detective, assigns Montand to the case, and the fascination lies in seeing Montand peeling the onion that will lead to himself (he had gone to call on his girl friend, unaware that she had been killed and left, natch, clues to his visit). Montand's real-life wife, the great Simone Signoret, turns in a fine cameo as the wife of the police chief and the poignant scene where she asks Montand's help in shooting herself is not only a highlight but to those aware of the on-set drama surrounding the scene (Signoret had enormous difficulty in going thru with it)a fitting remembrance of one of the all-time great French actresses. A feast for Montand fans.