Film Review: Classe Tous Risques

I recently wrote a new review of a 1960 French gangster film called Classe Tous Risques for Greencine.com's official DVD review blog Guru. Here's an excerpt (below) and a link to the whole review:

Reviewer: Walt Opie
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Classe Tous Risques ("The Big Risk") is a once underappreciated 1960 French film noir by director Claude Sautet (Un Coeur en Hiver), now finally out on DVD thanks to Criterion, that serves as something of a bridge between more conventional gangster pictures and the French New Wave, although it's much more a product of the former. Considering it was Sautet's true directorial debut, he gets a lot of things right, from terrific casting in even the small roles, including a memorable supporting part for the young Jean-Paul Belmondo at the peak of his Breathless powers, to convincing location shots in Milan, Nice and elsewhere. I especially appreciated his touch with filming some of the more violent scenes, which happen suddenly and end as quickly--as they do in real life.

The story, about a smart, burly gangster and family man named Abel Davos (Lino Ventura, a former champion wrestler) with a penchant for explosive bursts of violence as well as a more gentle side, might be an antecedent for Tony Soprano. It's certainly no shocker that modern action directors like John Woo and "Beat" Takeshi Kitano have sung the film's praises, although one wishes that Sautet had done more with the "family" theme he introduces to help develop Abel's humanity a little further. Still, you can't fault Ventura here--he displays just the right blend of menacing toughness and thoughtful vulnerability as he realizes this may be the end of the line for him. "You think you're clever," he says at one point. "And one day you're nothing."

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