Review: Short synopsis

This film opens with soldiers being released from the company of men. One of them pursues another with a weird scheme the other repeatedly refuses. Later they both get trapped in an office building in which they want to crack a safe during the Christmas holidays. Hostility turns into playful banter and then into a desperate fight for survival (during the bantering they lose all drinkable liquids, so it is really serious). With exposed, well built and well oiled torsos they ram a hole into a wall and finally manage to escape only to find out that they have been betrayed and set up by women. One gets caught, the other remains free and is not given away by his companion. A last encounter, a last light for a cigarette, adieu l'ami, farewell, friend.

I found it hard not to see closet homosexuals in the two main characters, played by classical he-man superstars Alain Delon and Charles Bronson. They are obviously attracted to each other, their treatment of women is abominable and marked by contempt throughout. The whole story seems to have a strong symbolic undertow, a little like Deliverance. It is also very stylish. The safe the two men want to crack is in a for the time ultra modern glass and aluminum tower. It is the seat of a publicity firm, so there are many fancy posters and wall coverings around. The wardrobe is also very good. The ultra stylish Citroen DS (maybe the most modern and elegant car of all times) features large in this movie perhaps a subtle kind of product placement.

I can recommend this movie for the actor's performances alone. Delon and Bronson are really sharing the top billing, in a manner that struck me as very fair and sporting. Both do a considerable amount of acrobatics. I have never seen Bronson better than here, he really acts - and speaks French throughout, with a heavy accent buy very passably indeed. And it is certainly the man himself we hear. (So the French language version is highly recommended). The police inspector who pursues the two is played by on of my favorite Franch character actors, Bernard Fresson who was Gene Hackman's partner in French Connection II. He is the best brainy police inspector I know. Also very good is former child actress Brigitte Fossey as the young ingenue who, as it turns out, is not so Innocent as it first seems.

Anyone who expects the "old in-an-out" of classical heist movies might be disappointed with this film. For those with a little patience this will be a rewarding experience, full of novel and original ideas and directorial quirks, although it my be a little too brutal and sadistic for its own sake.
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