Spondonman Jean Gabin made some tremendous movies throughout his long career, this was one I'd never seen before and although not tremendous is a pretty good absorbing gangster yarn. On the other hand the dead body count is most definitely tremendous, paradoxically human life seemed to have cheapened in value over his career.Tale of violent robberies followed by violent murders by a violent nutter, but the murder of his old childhood friend the sucker Albert really riles Police Comissaire Gabin. He dogs the baddies footsteps and eventually arranges his come-uppance in his role of official police avenger. And he's in charge and he's fed up with the seemingly endless supply of crooks. The spoiler alert is because when Dany Carrel - who I must say never looked lovelier than in here - gets pointlessly shot the film also shoots itself in the foot too and never quite recovers its direction. It left an exclamation point over my head; in fact the later train robbery reminded me of an old Keystone film in its lack of realism. Also the denouement reminded me of The Train except not poignant at all. However, overall the film was well made, flabby Gabin was eye-catching and impeccable as usual (but thankfully he wasn't asked to swing with the semi-naked hippies though!), and you're never bored.Personally I've always regarded Gabin's later films as being much more dated than his work from thirty years earlier – this is no exception. Jour Se Leve and Grand Illusion may have passed into Timelessness, and although this flimsy outing never will it's still entertaining.

writers_reign This was number 84 out of the 95 films that Jean Gabin appeared in over his long career. He still had both The Sicilian Clan and Le Chat ahead of him, with Le Chat being superior to both this entry and The Sicilian Clan but nevertheless this is a half-decent heist movie which has Gabin's flic, Inspector Joss, out to avenge a colleague whom, it turns out, was on the pad anyway. There's a nice line in ruthless heavies in the quaintly named Quinquin (pronounced Can Can) and a couple of good set-piece heists which crank up the interest and though it lacks both the Class and Style of Gabin's come-back movie Touchez-pas au grisbi it's far from chopped liver.

maxn While the story is pretty run-of-the-mill detective stuff, there are some bits of cinematography that I found stunning: Léon's car sinking in the pond while Brigitte Bardot sings "Harley Davidson", the odd meeting between Quinquin and Nathalie in the very cool JNS3 shop, Quinquin's elimination of his co-conspirators at the farm, the details of the original heist that starts everything off. The police offices are surreally cool and modern, stuffed with (for the time) ultra-high technology.It's really not Gabin's best performance by a long shot; another reviewer amusingly mentions him "waddling in." He seems tired and like he's just phoning it in. I disagreed that Dany Carrel couldn't act; I thought she was pretty good (and really beautiful). André Pousse (Quinquin) was very effective as a ruthless murderer.It was fun to see Gainsbourg and his nicotine-stained fingers in the studio. The music was used to pretty good effect through the movie -- perhaps most strikingly, as I noted above, when Quinquin takes care of Léon at the pond. Two touches that amused me: Gabin's character was named Joss, which presages Joss Beaumont in Le Professional (1981), another Lautner/Audiard collaboration. More subtle: the railway station chief at Troyes speaks with a pronounced stutter; Troyes is best known for the coronation of Louis the Stammerer in 878.I also got a kick out of it since it was filmed the year I was born, and the world then looks so different from the way it does now.

Franz-Erik Weiss "La Pacha", as a whole is OK. It's not quite up to the Melville standard of tough-guy intrigue, but it'll do. Dampening the initial, promising tempo, unfortunately, is Jean Gabin who seems to be one of those popular actors who's fallen into an artistic pit – and is destined to remain there. If you've seen one of his films, you've seen them all. The exception might be one of his rare comedies, such as "Le Tatoué" (together with Louis de Funès) where he displays an once of versatility. In "La Pacha" however, he's more like a worn-out prop than a necessary figure, and thank God for that for if he'd succeeded in dominating the film too much it would not have been worth seeing at all.I must also say that Serge Gainsbourg's soundtrack single is annoying: disrupting the story like thrusting a jagged toothpick into your eardrum with un-choreographic jolts, all through the film. It is certainly malplacé and it was quite unnecessary, as the slide-sound mixer was surely available in 1968.