Inspecteur Lavardin (1986)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Claude Chabrol

Writers:

Claude Chabrol (writer) &
Dominique Roulet (writer) ...

Release Date:

12 March 1986 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

Inspector Lavardin is induced to investigate the murder of a province's notable who was taking himself as the moral guardian of his village...

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Hypocrisy | Searching For A Culprit | Scandal | Boat

Cast

Jean Poiret	...	Inspecteur Jean Lavardin
Jean-Claude Brialy	...	Claude Alvarez
Bernadette Lafont	...	Hélène Mons
Jean-Luc Bideau	...	Max Charnet
Jacques Dacqmine	...	Raoul Mons
Hermine Clair	...	Véronique Manguin
Pierre-François Dumeniaud	...	Marcel Vigouroux
Florent Gibassier	...	Francis
Guy Louret	...	Buci
Jean Depussé	...	Volga
Marc Adam	...	Adam
Michel Dupuy	...	Frogman
Serge Feuillet	...	Priest
Michel Fontayne	...	Bouncer
Philippe Froger	...	Stage Manager

Also Known As:

L'inspecteur Lavardin ou la justice

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

France | Switzerland

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 | West Germany:12 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Dinan, Côtes-d'Armor, France

Company:

CAB Productions

Movie Connections:

Follows Poulet au vinaigre (1985)

Soundtrack:

Too Late

Predictably flaccid

I don't understand people's affection for Chabrol's films. I've watched a handful of them and they are fungibly torpid.

In Inspecteur Lavardin we have a set of smarmy characters - all utterly amused with themselves and their problems - and a story that, despite what other reviewers claim, reflects very conventional values and mores. I can't complain too much about the structure of the story. It is akin to the British variety - there's a murder, a set of suspects, all of whom seem to have something to hide, and a detective who ping-pongs among them matching secrets to the subjects, and the one left over is the murderer. However, one gets the feeling that Chabrol never in his life read a detective novel or watched a police TV show or movie (or just couldn't be bothered with the pesky details) since he, through his characters, seems blissfully unaware that there might be a tradition of procedures for homicide investigation and evidence collection. Or maybe in France they just don't care about fingerprints or cataloging evidence for trial. The problem isn't that the inspector is immoral or amoral, but that he is uber-moral (forgive my neologism, if it is one); that is, he is presented as knowing what's best despite what's legal. Stories about cops taking the law into their own hands is nothing new. But Chabrol does the least with it by having the well-coiffed inspecteur uphold middle class values and condemn those who would prey on the young and the weak. Great, if you happen to be a 13 year old girl, but otherwise insipid.

As I said, I can't fathom the charm Chabrol and his leaky films have over reviewers. Give me a Holmes or Marlowe any day.