L'Agression (1975)
Directed by Gérard Pirès

Film Review

After delivering three moderately successful comedies - Erotissimo (1968), Fantasia chez les ploucs (1971) and Elle court, elle court la banlieue (1973) - director Gérard Pirès changed tack and made his first foray into the thriller genre with L'Agression, a polished adaptation of John Buell's 1972 novel The Shrewsdale Exit.  In this he was assisted by the celebrated crime novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette, whose own popular novels have frequently been adapted for cinema, notably as Nada (1974) by Claude Chabrol, Folle à tuer (1975) by Yves Boisset and Pour la peau d'un flic (1981) by Alain Delon.  Pirès directed a few minor films after this, after which he gave up and diverted his talents into advertising, before returning to helm the Luc Besson blockbuster Taxi (1998) and scoring a massive box office success.

In the dramatic opening sequence of L'Agression, Pirès demonstrates the same flair for action filming that he would later bring to Taxi.  There are some striking similarities with Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971) in the way in which the biker attack on a car of holidaymakers is filmed and the tension sustained for several agonising minutes.  After this spectacular introduction, the film's pace suddenly slows to a crawl and it becomes a more conventional kind of French psychological thriller of this era.  It is a jarring transition and the only way Pirès gets away with it is because he has a lead actor who is particularly adept at carrying this kind of slow-burner film, namely Jean-Louis Trintignant.

Trintignant is never better than when playing the lone maverick threatened on all sides by powerful forces he has resolved to take on with his Lilliputian efforts - witness his performance in such films as Philippe Condroyer's Un homme à abattre (1967) and Serge Leroy's Les Passagers (1977).  In L'Agression, the actor gives one of his more intense and committed turns as a mild-mannered everyman who is driven to punish the killers of his wife and daughter after a horrifying assault.

Even though there are some other distinguished performers to assist him - Catherine Deneuve and Claude Brasseur both make an impact - it is Trintignant who grabs our attention from the start and never lets go, bodily dragging us along on a gruelling and pretty nasty campaign of revenge.  The film slips up right at the end, with a denouement which feels a tad clichéd and unconvincing.  Apart from this last-minute glitch, L'Agression makes compulsive viewing and sends a chill down the spine by showing us just how vicious human nature can be when the desire for justice asserts itself, transforming us from rational beings into bloodthirsty monsters.

Film Synopsis

The Varlins are an ordinary French family who are looking forward to their holiday on the Grande Motte, a mountain in the Savoie region of France.  When they set out on their long road journey, they are blissfully unaware that they will never reach their destination.  Whilst driving down a stretch of motorway, Paul Varlin is provoked into a fierce dispute with three loutish bikers.  Carried away in the heat of the moment, the bikers launch a violent attack on Varlin's car, with the result that Paul is rendered unconscious.

When he comes to, the unfortunate husband is horrified to find that his wife and daughter have been savagely raped and murdered.  In a state of great distress, he turns to his sister-in-law, Sarah, and appeals to her to help him pursue a dogged campaign of revenge.  He will not rest until he has found the three brutes and brought them to justice.  It isn't long before Varlin realises that the proper legal channels will be of no use to him.  His only resort is to pursue justice by his own means, which is to hunt down his wife's killers and execute them himself...