Review of Légitime violence

A thriller that is finally not so tough and not so favorable to self-defense. Claude Brasseur would like to do something to find his family's murderers, because he realizes that the police are not making any progress (or don't want to, we understand). But he is not going to take up arms himself. The police don't seem to be leading the investigation and he turns to a group that is tired of unpunished crimes. It is more the vigilante group, perfectly directed and by Roger Planchon, quite delirious in his interpretation, that carries the subject.

Claude Brasseur finally falls in love with the sister of one of the criminals, Véronique Genest.

Curiously, this film of men is interesting on the ambiguous relationships of men to women. Thierry Lhermitte, Véronique Genest's brother, seems to have a love for her that is a little too strong; the brother runs a nightclub for transvestites. Claude Brasseur, in a quest for revenge, is not insensitive to Véronique Genest, the only one who knows who the killers of her family are and who is therefore an accomplice. And Roger Planchon whose scenes with his "niece" are very equivocal (the niece being played by Valerie Kaprisky with a certain sensuality).

The torpid police commissioner, signed Michel Aumont, also contributes to give texture to the film with a political dimension to the whole.