Le Grand pardon (1982)
Directed by Alexandre Arcady

Film Review

After their successful first collaboration on Le Coup de sirocco (1979), director Alexandre Arcady and actor Roger Hanin joined forces to deliver this lavish modern gangster film, generously paying homage to similar American offerings such as Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films as they did so. Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... To describe Le Grand pardon as derivative is understating matters somewhat. It is a wholesale rip-off which, far from venturing something fresh and original, is content to serve up a luke-warm mass of clichés and borrowed situations plundered from other films, including French crime films such as Le Clan des Siciliens (1969).

Throughout his career, Arcady has shown a consistent knack of knowing what appeals to the mainstream but this, like so much of his work, is the cinematic equivalent of junk food - all surface gloss, with little underlying substance. Roger Hanin's portrayal of a gangland boss is pure caricature, as secondhand as the rambling plot that plods wearily over well-trodden ground. The film's one saving grace is a chilling performance from Bernard Giraudeau, who is excellent as the principal bad guy. Crass and formulaic though the film is, it managed to be a notable box office hit in France, attracting an audience of 2.2 million. The film's popularity led Arcady to make a sequel, the imaginatively titled Le Grand pardon II, ten years later.

Film Synopsis

At the age of 50, Raymond Bettoun finds himself at the head of one of the most notorious gangster clans in France, one that is proud of its Jewish pied-noir ancestry.  The police, in particular Superintendent Duché, have been trying to bring him to justice for years, all to no avail.  The king of the Parisian underworld, Bettoun demonstrates both his power and his cunning by arranging a ruthless killer's release from police custody, knowing full well that the killer's first act will be to take out Bettoun's main rival, Carreras.  In Pascal Villars, the gangster boss believes his has a faithful lieutenant, a man willing to execute his orders without question.

In fact, Villars is about to become Bettoun's most dangerous enemy, by killing a useful ally and thereby driving a wedge between the gang's Jewish and Arab factions. Duché can now step in and arrest Bettoun, allowing the latter's son Maurice to take over his criminal empire.  Within no time the city is awash with blood, Duché has no other choice but to release his prize prisoner in order to stop the carnage before it gets completely out of hand.  When Bettoun realises who is to blame for all this mayhem he goes after him and ensures he is dealt a fitting retribution...