(2001; French, subtitles) An aging gangster, Milan (Johnny Hallyday), arrives in a quiet little town by train and meets a very trusting elderly gentleman, Mr Manesquier (Jean Rochefort), at a pharmacy, who invites the stranger into his home (the hotel is closed), the doors of which he leaves unlocked. The retired literature teacher of thirty years never married; his mother, with whom he'd lived, died 15 years earlier. On Saturday he is to enter the hospital for triple-bypass surgery; at the same time Milan has plans to rob the bank, with the help of three associates, where Manesquier has kept his account for 40 years.

Manesquier, a fan of the cinema ("You watch too many thrillers," Milan chides), goes into Milan's bedroom while he is away and puts on the gangster's black leather jacket with fringe, imagining himself to be in a western, saying to the mirror, fists pulled like six-shooters: "I'm from Laramie."

In a café in an attempt to display some mettle after a young tough rudely bumps into Milan without apologizing, Manesquier confronts the loud youth only to have the young man express appreciation for his former teacher's poetry instruction. Inside the bank the old gentleman tells Milan of his fantasy of holding it up and using the money to go to the Bahamas.

Together they discuss the upcoming job - Milan is waiting to see if his partner Luigi will show up; Milan takes Manesquier out for a lesson in shooting a pistol. Both men imagine themselves in the other's place. Manesquier gets a new style of haircut from his barber (somewhere between "fresh out of jail" and "star soccer player"), coaxes his sister into admitting that her husband is "a big fat prick," and has a final fling with Viviane (Isabelle Petit-Jacques), his former mistress. She tells Milan that Manesquier is "Not much fun, but an optimist." When at dinner she tells Manesquier about her son's exams in school, the gangster replies: he wants to hear of "tenderness and sex," not about your brat.

Manesquier confesses to Milan that he wishes he'd explored other women. "Women aren't what they used to be," answers Milan. "I stopped living before I grew old," says Manesquier. "You get more precious," Milan assures his host.

Manesquier offers Milan money if he will leave town before the intended heist, but he declines the generous gift. As the hoodlums head toward the bank and Manesquier is prepped for surgery, the driver of the car, who only speaks a single sentence each day at 10 a.m., says: "We shall pass, like centuries and doves."

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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