In August 1952, a family of British tourists is found by the roadside in Haute Provence, brutally murdered. In the ensuing, very public, investigation a local landowner, 75 year old Gaston Dominici, is arrested for the murders, having been denounced by his sons. Under police interrogation, Dominici confesses to have killed the family and it looks certain that he will be charged, tried and sentenced to death. But then the case begins to collapse. The old man retracts his confession and the lack of evidence against him becomes apparent…
Leo (Peter Lanzani) is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. After taping a murder and keeping the evidence he runs away to stay alive and, in order to survive, he has to cover up himself. Under a new identity he will become an orthodox Hasidic Jew. A french ruthless killer, Duges (Gerard Depardieu) and his associates López (Santiago Segura) and Harken (Hugo Silva) will hunt Leo. Their nonstop chase has only one exhilarating speed: all- out. Time is running out and his enemies are getting closer. Now Leo a ragtag bunch of misfits will face the biggest challenge of their lives.
When the boss' unlucky daughter is missing in South America, Campana is sent to watch the boss' most unlucky employee who is sent as a private detective in hopes he can duplicate the daughter's mistakes.
Two men break out of prison; a rival gang ambushes them. One is mortally wounded and tells the other, Mickey, to take him to the estate of a retired robber, Noel, who lives in comfort with his lovely and beloved wife, Nicole. The man dies, and Mickey, a menacing hothead, demands money of Noel. A few days later, Mickey returns to the estate, shoots up a dinner party and threatens them again. Noel sends Nicole to an hotel and goes to his old gang to help him hunt down the dangerous Mickey. Mickey has other problems, too, including heartache for a daughter he hardly knows. Young, eager cops tail Nicole, and all are on a complicated collision course.
"René la Canne" was the second collaboration between Francis Girod and Ennio Morricone, coming after "Le Trio Infernal" (1974) and before "La Banquière" (1980). His film is an adaptation of a story by Roger Borniche about the gangster René Girier and relates the fantastic adventures of a flamboyant mobster (René/Gérard Depardieu) and a maverick police inspector (Fernand la Sournoise/Michel Piccoli), through the 1940s.
Gerard Depardieu plays a sleazy Paris nightclub owner and ex-detective who flies to Hong Kong to rescue the young son of a friend murdered by the Chinese mob. He leaves the boy in the hands of an earnest priest (Christian Clavier), who escorts him back to Paris. Soon Clavier and Depardieu are fighting it out, each shadowed by his good or evil guardian angel.
Onoff is a famous writer, now a recluse. The Inspector is suspicious when Onoff is brought into the station one night, disoriented and suffering a kind of amnesia. In an isolated, rural police station, the Inspector tries to establish the events surrounding a killing, to reach a startling resolution.
The plot in this story weaves around like a New Year's reveler at four in the morning, heading first in one direction and then in another, with the intention of going home if things would just stop moving. Bernard (Gerard Depardieu) is a doctor whose Hippocratic oath was a hypocritic failure -- the not-so-good doctor kills his wife because she is having an affair, and he kills her lover too. Then he joins the French Foreign Legion. On his way to the former French colonies in Africa, the plane he is in crashes, and Rossi, a "friend" on the plane with some overweight in carry-on money, shoots Bernard and takes off, leaving him for dead. He is nursed back to life and health by friendly villagers and just his luck, he not only manages to make his fortune in Africa, he also nabs a French passport from a dying man who will clearly not need it anymore unless the Pearly Gates have a French guard.
An absurd black comedy that cunningly reverses the conventions of the crime thriller to comment on the alienating and dehumanizing effects of contemporary urban life. Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. His confusion lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu. Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur.