Les voleurs (1996)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

André Téchiné

Writers:

André Téchiné (dialogue) &
Gilles Taurand (dialogue) ...

Release Date:

25 December 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

C'est important d'avoir un ennemi, c'est meme vital.

Plot:

In the middle of the night, someone brings Ivan's body home to his wife and his sad-faced, jug-eared son...

Plot Keywords:

Opera | Young Boy | Girlfriend Girlfriend Relationship | Auto Theft | Uncle Nephew Relationship

Awards:

2 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Catherine Deneuve	...	Marie Leblanc
Daniel Auteuil	...	Alex
Laurence Côte	...	Juliette Fontana
Benoît Magimel	...	Jimmy Fontana
Fabienne Babe	...	Mireille
Didier Bezace	...	Ivan
Julien Rivière	...	Justin
Ivan Desny	...	Victor
Régis Betoule	...	Régis
Pierre Perez	...	Fred
Naguime Bendidi	...	Nabil
Didier Raymond	...	Lucien
Jean-Louis Meunier	...	Chanteur 'Tamino'
Eric Kreikenmayer	...	Adjoint Alex
Jean-Jacques Cravero	...	Travesti 1

Also Known As:

The Child of the Night
Thieves

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexuality, some violent moments and language.

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Argentina:18 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 (bw) | Portugal:M/16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

La Duchère, Lyon, Rhône, Rhône-Alpes, France

Company:

Canal+

Quotes:

Marie: Before Christ was a time of orgies. Then came love.
Alex: Love's less fun.
Marie: Probably. In orgies you give your all. No more, no less. In love, it's never enough. It's always too much or not enough.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Les convoyeurs attendent (1999)

Soundtrack:

Kalina Malina

Unlikable characters in a likable film

I DVR'd this film in spite of a two-star rating from Comcast, because I like Daniel Auteuil and Catherine DeNeuve. How bad could it be? I wasn't disappointed. It begins with a mystery-who killed the father of the cynical little kid? And slowly breaks open the story, revealing the characters as it reveals the criminal enterprise that brought them all together. Most of them-including the little kid-are not family-friendly. This isn't a family film. A cop who hates his brother and is in turn hated by their father, who tells him, face to face, that he would have preferred that the cop had been killed instead. The dead man's son seems to despise his entire family, including his mother, and his uncle, the cop. Who, in turn, doesn't like kids. The cop's girlfriend doesn't like him much, and he really doesn't want to deal with her except for sex. But as others have noted about this film on this forum, the director pulls out just enough unexpected gilded moments to make it enjoyable to watch-like: a middle-aged college professor delivering a 3-minute dissertation on the position of money in western philosophy to a professional car thief during a nighttime ride through Lyon. At the car thief's request. That sort of theater of the Absurd approach is one thing I like about French films. They're dependable that way.