Le Gang (1977)
Directed by Jacques Deray

Film Review

By the mid-1970s, director Jacques Deray was on a roll.  With the policier proving to be the most successful genre in French cinema at the time, his hard-boiled gangster films proved to be highly popular with a French mainstream cinema audience, and this also helped to maintain the popularity of his most iconic actor, Alain Delon.  Deray and Delon had first worked together on the stylish psychological thriller La Piscine (1969) and went on to score notable hits with their subsequent gangster films Borsalino (1970) and Borsalino & Co (1974).  Their next collaboration, Le Gang, came just as Delon's massive public appeal was beginning to decline, although the film still managed to attract a very respectable audience of 1.2 million in France.

Le Gang is a faithful adaptation of a crime novel by a former police chief-turned-writer Roger Borniche, recounting the true story of the infamous hoodlum Pierre Loutrel, better known by his soubriquet Pierrot le Fou.  Borniche had collaborated with Deray on an earlier film, Flic Story (1975), an adaptation of another of his semi-autobiographical novels in which Delon starred alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant.  As with that earlier film, Le Gang benefits greatly from Borniche's first-hand experience of the post-war crime milieu and the somewhat dubious methods employed by the police of the time in their determined efforts to thwart the exploits of organised criminals.

Despite being saddled with a far from convincing wig which looks more like an alien lifeform than a perm, Delon turns in one of his more creditable and sympathetic performances, bringing a charm and depth to his portrayal of a cool gangster boss that was far less apparent in the gory Borsalino films.  With the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville's gangster films (notably Le Doulos and Le Samourai) showing throughout, Le Gang tends to direct our sympathies towards the law-breakers, whose behaviour appears far more humane and restrained than that exhibited by their over-enthusiastic police pursuers, who come off as nasty and incompetent bunglers, the real villains of the piece.

It's a shame that the quality of Delon's performance is not matched by the rest of the cast, who generally fail to bring anything like as much realism and pathos to their performances.  Deray's direction, whilst as impressive as ever in the superbly well-staged action scenes, also lacks the inspired touch seen in his other gangster films.  Whilst it certainly has a great deal going for it, Le Gang does feel at times like a tired and pretty complacent retread of familiar material - unevenly paced, unimaginatively cast and lacking the narrative sophistication of, say, Flic Story.  Fortunately, Deray and Delon would redeem themselves handsomely on their next collaboration, the far better received thriller Trois hommes à abattre (1980).

Film Synopsis

In the aftermath of World War II, France is in a state of confusion, and the police are fighting an uphill battle to re-impose the rule of law on a nation still scarred by its sorry period of Nazi Occupation.  One gang, led by the hardened criminal Robert Le Dingue, ruthlessly takes advantage of the country's disarray, raiding banks and factories in order to amass a vast fortune.  Undeterred by the gang's run of success, the police set about thwarting Robert's ambitions, resorting to whatever means they can to bring about a desired outcome...