Political disagreements these days occur mostly on the Internet, where the worst thing that can happen is someone getting deplatformed. In real life, however, consequences can be much more severe, as shown at the beginning of The French Detective, the 1975 French crime thriller directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre. During an election campaign in the city of Rouen, two rival groups of campaign workers get into a fight over posters and a young man gets beaten to death. Police Inspector Moirtrier (played by Gérard Hérold), who tried to break up the fight, gets shot and dies, but not before identifying Antoine Portor (played by Claude Brosset), an ex-convict with a history of violence, as the perpetrator. His boss, Commissioner Verjeat (played by Lino Ventura), is determined to bring Portor to justice, but the investigation gets complicated due to the fact that Portor was hired by Pierre Lardatte (played by Victor Lanoux), an influential politician with many powerful friends in the police, who fears that the investigation might not only harm his campaign but also discover various shady dealings. Verjeat is soon told by his superiors about his promotion and immediate transfer to a new post in Montpellier. He is, however, now determined to get both Portor and Lardatte, so, together with his young subordinate Inspector Lefèvre (played by Patrick Dewaere), he devises an ingenious plan to postpone his transfer and continue the investigation.
The film was based on the novel by prolific crime author Raf Vallet, which had been inspired by real events in the Parisian suburb of Puteaux a few years earlier. The French Detective, scripted by renowned writer and filmmaker Francis Veber, however, takes a lot of inspiration from trends in Hollywood and Western European cinema in the 1970s and paints a bleak picture of a world where the line between organised crime and government becomes blurred, with the police inevitably either drawn into or hampered by widespread corruption. Granier-Deferre, however, isn’t that interested in moralistic sermons and instead directs a fast-paced police thriller with a couple of action scenes that involve gunfights and car chases, with some black humour thrown in for good measure. Its best asset is its cast, despite the characters being mostly one-dimensional and undeveloped. Former boxer Lino Ventura again delivers both great talent and charisma as the world-weary but intelligent protagonist who finds a way to manipulate the corrupt system against itself. Patrick Dewaere is somewhat less effective as his younger and more reckless colleague, but he still has enough talent to create a good “buddy” dynamic, and it is a shame that the film didn’t feature more scenes of these two characters together. Some younger viewers might be put off by the “political incorrectness” of characters who physically abuse prisoners, use crude methods of dealing with street protesters, or slap nurses’ backsides in hospital. However, even in this flawed form, The French Detective represents a good example of an effective and easily digestible genre piece.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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