Reeling Backward: Le Gang (1977)
Alain Delon stars in this newly restored French heist film directed by Jacques Deray that follows a brash quartet of robbers in the waning days of World War II.
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As a king of cool, Delon was not quite on par with French New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo. Still, he was a big star and international sex symbol from the 1960s to 1980s, often playing dangerous men, cads and thieves.
He's a bit of all three in "Le Gang," the 1977 film directed by Jacques Deray. It's a heist picture loosely based on a real gang of thieves that pulled off a number of daring jobs in the waning days of World War II. It reminded me a little each of "Ocean's Eleven," "Reservoir Dogs" and "Goodfellas," though isn't anywhere in their league.
Delon's character, Robert, is nicknamed "the crazy one," and it fits. He's a bundle of impulses, a man who knows what he wants and goes after it, immediately, usually without any thought for the consequences. So I think we know how it's going to turn out for him.
We actually find out right away, as the film opens with Robert lying on his deathbed surrounded by the rest of the gang when his lover, Marinette (Nicole Calfan), is brought in to weep over him and say goodbye. The rest of the movie plays out in flashback, though there are some flashbacks within the flashbacks.
"Le Gang" is now out in a sharp restoration Blu-ray paired with another Delon/Deray thriller, "Three Men to Kill," from Kino Lorber.
I admired the film's energy and that of Delon, who is indeed a compelling presence. He's sort of a combination of the icy cool of Robert De Niro in "Goodfellas" combined with Joe Pesci's eruptible mania in the same movie. He's capable of calculation, but also throwing the plan out the door if something more interesting comes up.
In one of the film's signature sequences, Robert is cut off from the rest of the gang after a big Paris job. He runs into a Tunisian immigrant neighborhood and hides out in an older prostitute's room, where he is picked up by the police as a john. Thrown into the huge jail pool at police headquarters, Robert is enraged that he's not recognized as the head of the gang and is repeatedly ignored.
Grabbing a machine gun in the chaos, Robert proceeds to shoot up the place, loudly proclaiming his identity and daring the cops to challenge him. We get the sense that he could take being caught for robbing a bank, but not being charged as a run-of-the-mill offender.
They're known as the Traction Avant, or Front Wheel Drive, Gang -- a name taken from Robert's beloved Citroën roadster that he drives on every job as his good luck charm.
The rest of the gang isn't nearly as distinctive as Robert, though I think the screenwriters -- story by Roger Borniche, script by Alphonse Boudard and Jean-Claude Carrière -- are deliberate in making him the first among equals.
Lucien, aka "The Mammoth" (Maurice Barrier), is the muscle of the group and the quickest to anger. There are vague rumors about him doing terrible things during the war. Jo (Xavier Depraz) is the older, more stoic one. Manu (Adalberto Maria Merli) is a bit of a fop.
They're mostly a quartet, though have a number of friends and allies who act as tertiary members of the gang. Raymond (Roland Bertin) is seguing out of crime, having just had his first-born with his wife. Felicia (Laura Betti) is an older woman whose house is sometimes used as a hideout; she has some sort of past with Robert and seems to understand him better than anyone.
Cornelius (Raymond Bussières) is the innkeeper at the countryside establishment that is their unofficial headquarters, an old crook himself who swaps stories about which are the worst jails and judges. Leon (Giampiero Albertini) is an invalid who was a father figure to Robert when he was a boy, a gangland bigshot who got thrown out a window by his competitors. Now he just sits in his wheelchair and stares, a silent warning of the harsh endings their way of life always leads to.
The gang members are noted for always being dressed to the nines in sharp, form-fitting suits. Even hanging outdoors at the country inn playing ball, they're in vests and ties. Robert stands out for favoring double-breasted jobs.
We first "meet" the gang for real when they go into a nightclub and get into a fight with drunken American soldiers and sailors, easily dispatching them and impressing Marinette, who's the coat check girl. Robert pretends to barely notice her, but is waiting outside after closing to pick up her up and sweep her away to be his girlfriend. Like I said, he acts fast.
I wasn't sure what to make of the ridiculous linguine curly hairdo Delon wears in the movie. He had naturally straight hair, and this appears to be a perm rather than a wig. Maybe the idea was to make Robert look like he was stuck out of time, an idea helped by the tiny John Lennon-esque sunglasses he wears on jobs.
It makes him seem less threatening than his actions would suggest, so maybe that was the idea.
The various jobs the gang pulls range from ingenious to so-stupid-they're-brilliant. At one point they go to a factory to rob the safe and find the accountant who can open it has not yet arrived, so they leave to go pull the second heist they had planned. Their idea was the police, limited in its ability by so many men being off at war, would all be responding at the first place while they were hitting the second.
This works out just like they planned. Then Robert says they should go back to the factory, since the accountant will have arrived by now. They do just that, posing as plainclothes detectives investigating the attempted robbery, and make off with the loot.
It's notable that the gang never kills or seriously injures anyone. Even during his tirade against the police, Robert never does worse than give on a few kicks in the stomach to one and scare the desk sergeant by shooting bullets over his head.
The music by Carlo Rustichelli quickly gets repetitive and annoying, a single bouncy theme played over and over on a tinny piano. Most film composers know that even when you find your central flourish, you have use it economically for it to retain the same power. Imagine if the "Star Wars" movies played the title blast again and again during the feature.
I liked a lot of things about "Le Gang," though I wish it had taken time to flesh out the backgrounds and personalities of the whole group more. I realize it's a heist picture, not a character study, but it gets harder to invest in the people you're watching when they remain ciphers.
When it comes to authenticity on film, it isn't something you can fake... or filch.