A French crime film aimed at the big time by featuring not one not two but three big stars associated with that genre: Jean Gabin, Alain Delon and Lino Ventura.
It's a film of set pieces - Delon escapes from prison with the help of the mafia, Delon escapes from the cops from a hooker's bedroom (topless moment - there's a bit of nudity in this movie), Delon watches Irina Demick bathe nude on the beach (a hot scene - they go for it), a hijacking of a plane, the final confrontation with a dame and a bag of cash.
It's not really an epic - it could have been an epic but doesn't explore the relationships between the characters to any great degree. Gabin has all these sons who are just ciphers, and their wives are just wives except Demick who is an outside (French in a Sicilian family). There's no real relationship between Gabin and Delon - some father-son stuff (like Gabin preferred Delon to Demick's whimpy husband or something) would have worked wonders.
The actors mostly stand around and look cool. Since they are cool that's actually fine for the most part. Ventura doesn't get to do much except glower and slap around some crims. He has a scene with Delon's sister that I thought was going to lead to romance - it should have, would have given him more to do.
It's an enjoyable programmer - I liked its style and what not - but there's not a lot of meat on the bones.
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