deville's thriller is very fascinating to the last moment. the whole movie is held in a mystic blue as is the picture's atmosphere. conclusions and story line equal each other in sharpness and very sexy mathilda may adds an superb erotic touch to it. no explosions or dumb Hollywood shootings disturb the intelligent logic plot at any point. every moment of the movie feels right, the director never looses his line or control. the male leads bruel and dutronc deliver great performances as well. in my eyes this is clearly one of the 10 best french films of the 90ies. it should be your first choice, if you like straight intelligent stories created by brains like mrs. highsmith.

A village in the Alps, some thieves murdered a couple of old people. The young inspector Vade must inquire but he collaborates, by annoys or ambition, in the revenge of the son of the couple, the mysterious businessman, Gardella, who eliminates the murderers. Taking the chance, an agent of Interpol, Thurston, which watched Gardella for a long time, transfers Vade to Zurich and handles it so that the young cop informs him on the activities of the businessman and tends a trap to him. Seduced by Gardella and his very beautiful wife, Jeanne, Vade must choose his camp and avoid being manipulated.

On a well tied up story of an American polar (Sweat hearts by Coburn), Deville stylizes (as he had already done for Dossier 51) a mise en scene and dialogs with double meanings, playing with words in French and an actor direction shifted near to the theater but less exaggerated than a Kusturica. This stylization on the thriller genre is an experiment which transforms a dark police movie into a story full of poetry in the dialogs and the images. I recommend it for everyone, in particular amateurs of the police genre and the lovers of French. Note the great building of the characters; all have something to tell, and the beauty of Mathilda May.