User Reviews

To say that novelist Jim Thompson has been badly served by American directors would be something of an understatment as the only worthwhile version to emerge from Hollywoodland, 'The Grifters', is directed by Englishman Stephen Frears. Apart from that, one has to look to France for the two adaptations that capture Thompson's spirit and do him justice, namely 'Série Noire' of Alain Corneau, based upon 'A hell of a Woman' and 'Coup de Torchon', adapted by director Betrand Tavernier and legendary screenwriter Jean Aurenche from 'Pop 1280' with the setting transposed from Texas to Senegal.

The change of location to French West Africa is inspired as it suits perfectly Thompson's bleak view of the human condition with its lazy, morally vacuous, corrupt colonial officials and assorted low lifes. The linchpin of the film is the transformation of complacent police chief Cordelier from buffoon to judge, jury and executioner. He is so cleverly played by Tavernier's favourite actor, the superlative Philippe Noiret, that one can neither condone nor condemn him nor dismiss him as a lunatic. Audiences through the years have shown their admiration for vigilantes but for this viewer at any rate, any regard for Cordelier's actions are soon diminished.

Noiret's superb performance is complemented by those of Isabelle 'super' Huppert as his horny-as-hell mistress, Stéphane Audran as his unfaithful wife, Guy Marchand as his bigoted superior and the always good value Jean Pierre Marielle again showing his versatility by playing two brothers. Irene Skobline plays the schoolteacher whose comparative innocence attracts Cordelier and it is a great pity that her film career did not progress any further.

The cruelty and cynicism of the piece is balanced by the visual elegance one has come to expect from this director, whilst the production design is by Alexandre Trauner and the sun-drenched cinematography by Pierre William Glenn who also shot the aforementioned 'Série Noire'. Although the steadicam has been over used in recent years it is here extremely effective.

Throughout the 1970's Tavernier had come to be regarded as a 'humanist' director so this came as something of a surprise. It proved a commercial but not a critical success. It is an ambiguous, unsettling, fascinating film and now that nations have been forced to come to terms with their colonial past, it is more relevant than ever.

After reading some of the reviews on here, I felt compelled to write one myself simply because it seems most of the people who reviewed this film did not read the book it was based on (POP 1280 by Jim Thompson). Some found it astonishing that one would actually seek out this book in the first place (including the director), but I happen to be a Jim Thompson junkie and I would say POP 1280 stands as his best work in the "psycho-lawman" sub-genre that he single-handedly created. It's far superior to the Killer Inside Me although many would disagree with that. Long ago, when I found out there was an actual film based on this book, I had to find it and see it. Luckily it was at my local blockbuster, and I rushed home to view this take on one of my favorite Thompson books. I have to say, it was a bit off-putting to see the whole story transposed to Senegal. However, as the film played, I realized that this was actually quite a brilliant move by Bernard. Aside from the location and French actors, everything else is mostly retained from the book in terms of the dark humor and over-the-top situations. The acting is superb and the cinematography is just gritty enough to give it the feel it needs. This is one of the best Thompson adaptations and I highly recommend it, especially if you have read the novel. I also recommend seeking out Serie_Noire which is the French adaptation of A Hell of A Woman. It's not as good as this one, but it's still excellent.

Bertrand Tavernier once again shows why he's one of his country's most challenging directors with this disturbing dark comedy, loosely adapted from a Jim Thompson novel ('POP 1280') but relocated to French Equatorial Africa just before World War II. The story follows a lazy, ineffective police chief in a dusty colonial city, who begins to manipulate his tormentors in much the same way they earlier abused him, discovering along the way the omnipotence of his position and the immunity provided by his reputation as an incompetent buffoon. After suffering the indignities of a natural born doormat all his life, he strikes back with a vengeance, slowly descending into a rational madness that commands sympathy while simultaneously provoking moral outrage (at one point he callously murders the innocent native servant who mistakenly witnessed on of his killings). Tavernier builds the tension from his characters rather than from the plot, using touches of unsettling black humor to further blur the line dividing comedy and tragedy.

Bertrand Tavernier has taken the novel "TOP 1280" by Jim Thompson set in North Carolina and produced a riveting French film noir set in Senegal in 1938. At that time it was a French colony that exhibited similar social and racial patterns as in the American South. The use of color and humor add a new dimension to the genre. Tavernier in his comments about the film on the DVD talks about the change in the light in the late afternoon in west Africa. It becomes less intense so he uses pastel colors. Note the light blue walls and the pink shirt of Philippe Noiret who is superb as the village policeman Cordier. Isabelle Huppert who plays the mistress of Cordier with intensity and humor and the other actors make this a must see film. There is much humor in the film but be aware that there are many violent scenes. This is French film noir at it's best.

This is one of my favorite films. After all these years, it holds up beautifully. It's surreal, funny, tragic, strange, and somehow all holds together.

Noiret is wonderful, and a great foil for Huppert, with his hang-dog looks and understated acting. Although he plays a policeman, Noiret's character makes his own decisions about justice without the need for pesky government interference.

Isabelle Huppert and Stephane Audran are also perfect in their roles.

The cinematography is superb, with beautiful shots of Africa.

It's hard to categorize this movie, but Coup de Torchon is a must see! I think I've seen it 4 times.

Lucien Cordier is not like most cops. He's a main chief in a West African village where white people are the minority though, in 1938, are as racist and sexist as can be. He's also not a very good cop, as he barely ever arrests anyone and his authority can be challenged pretty quickly, even by two scummy pimps. He's like the pushover kid in a playground who may be a nice guy, but he's also not quite strong enough to actually attain the authority needed to stand up against the bullies. That is until Lucien decides to fight back, in a manner that is at a calm extreme; an oxymoron, perhaps, but watching Lucien is an oxymoron in human form, but a fascinating one. He'll kill someone, anyone, he thinks of as an enemy to him, shooting a man in the back, the pimps, or even the man who helps him dig a grave. He calmly explains some of the whys, but he never goes too ballistic. Lucien is a man of principles, but to say exactly what or why is a mystery.

This is what makes Coup de tochon, or Clean Slate, based on the Jim Thompson novel Pop 1280 (mentioned in passing as Pop. 1275 for no good reason at one point in the film), is about this man who is warm, lustful, proud, and perhaps a not entirely bright but not stupid either. And as played by Philippe Noiret he makes this film compulsively watchable. The supporting cast, such as Isabelle Hupert and Jean-Pierre Marielle, don't fare too badly either, but it's Noiret that elevates this to something more than director Bertrand Tavernier could have expected. He gives a performance that is intense without ever being over the top, and thoughtful while seemingly aloof in some points. He makes Lucien a guy we might like to know or talk to for a little while, until we see the veneer peel away, a fragile man who has been pushed around by his bosses and his wife (Stephan Audran) and in a position with such little power that the only way to bust loose is senseless killing. As he says, "Would a man with these eyes be a killer?"

Tavernier's direction is lax and smooth, jagged with some documentary style and realism (it was shot all on location, and it looks it always), but there's also a distance I felt to many of the scenes, a deliberate attempt to strip down film-noir elements to light absurdism mixed with sardonic tragedy. There are some great moments, don't get me wrong: the scene with the film screened for the village people at night that gets ruined by a windstorm as the audio keeps playing on with the film cut off and people scrambling for cover; the first killing scene of the pimps where Lucien becomes a larger threat with every passing second leading up to a predictable but still shocking climax; an ending, which I won't mention here.

It has such moments, but I wasn't very moved by Coup de torchon throughout, and it's not directed with the surest hand. And yet, I have to give it to Philippe Noiret: in any other film noir he'd be out of place, and yet here, he's perfect.

One of the best films I've ever seen, period.

I have never laughed so much, then felt so guilty. BT is a genius.

Every moment is pure gold, every second to be treasured.

Like the best detective stories ever written, the puzzle is the least of the viewer's concerns. But rather BT submerges us in a world with which we are probably totally unfamiliar, and yet we never doubt it for a second.

The cast is peerless, with Noiret rewarding the viewer with his most perfectly nuanced/sympathetic/anti- hero imaginable. No one has ever been denied an Oscar so cruelly.

I have promised myself I will share this with everyone who is important to me, woe betide me if I fail.

There is something repulsive in this noirish tale of amoral behavior and violence among French colonists in an African country in the late 1930s. Doltish Lucien is a sheriff who is (sometimes literally) kicked around by the people in his life - until he somewhat randomly decides to start offing those who impede his progress. And why does he walk around looking more like a tourist than an officer of the law? His murderous behavior becomes increasingly horrifying, until the story surprisingly turns somewhat philosophical towards the end. There are some fine performances and location filming. This is no classic, but it is worth a look. Based on a Jim Thompson novel.

Jim Thompson meets Joseph Conrad in a small, dusty town in Senegal. The writing is excellent throughout, delving into themes that most films would never have the guts to handle. Brutal, darkly humorous and brilliantly done. A great, great film noir. Not a movie for those easily offended (though one they should probably see and learn from.)

French humor is like coffee: you either like it or dislike it. As the film starts, one can quickly make up its mind about whether it's enjoyable to watch or not. But it isn't what it seems.

A corrupt cop in Western Africa with little respect or authority turns to vengeance. It describes the film perfectly. However, just like the description of French comedy, it isn't what it seems.

The dark humor, film-noir in a town filled with light, the little rhymes in the dialogues: it's been thought over, earning good ratings from critics. It's understandable, when it's mixed with symbolism, philosophical discussions and a very realistic scenery.

Add the blatant racism and the actors' excellent performances, and we're mixing too many things. For some reasons, it felt like watching a play at the theater, as well due to the intense dialogues.

However, it fails to capture the attention. The film misses direction. The actors seem distant. Despite so many good ingredients, the end result isn't convincing. But it is surely to those who like a mix of genres.

I saw this as part of a Jim Thompson quest.

The film opens with a solar eclipse, a mythic way perhaps of foreshadowing the eclipse of humanity and values that follows. The West African setting is only proper in that aspect, like the setting of the Jim Thompson book, it's a doomed dusty limbo blotted out of the map where, in the absence of palpable law or ethos, humans are allowed to be the lowest they can be. Elsewhere the world is perhaps striving to maintain a moral appearance, but not so in Bourkassa, no one is looking there. Thompson had a dark view of humanity, for his own reasons, and for his protagonists, his crazed sheriffs and murderous sociopaths, he seems to reserve a last word that justifies their existence.

It's a really funny film, as a comedy it works marvels, and I like how Tavernier shifts the tone light to dark, goofy to perverse.

But what about Codier, the policeman of the small African town at the edge of the desert? Another reviewer reads in him a deranged figure of destiny that smites down people who deserve it, a vengeful Jesus placed on this earth not to save souls but to release them. But, even though his folly is obvious, the lack of retribution for his acts, the lack of a destiny to smite him, is it omission or statement? In an amoral universe that defies order, Codier is perhaps trying to maintain a perverse moral ground, or he's only serving his own bastard self, pushing his luck to see how far it will get him. If the film was a thriller it might have not worked, but I saw an absurd comedy foremost, and the laughter of that amoral universe is also echoed in Codier himself.

When he goes on on his little soliloquis on existence, Tavernier reaches for a solemn tone that seems strange at first, but at least we can understand that this murderous buffoon is no better than anyone else around him. He's likable because he suffers indignity with the nonchalance of a Mr. Hulot, but the next day he'll wake up a coward killer and scumbag. This contrast and his own belief in the incorrigible of his actions makes the movie work.

Perhaps he's so successful at being a scumbag, because the rest of the world permits it. If everyone else around him is either a moron or a scumbag, why should he strive to be any better? As a human being he's pathetic, but as a movie character I find him fascinating to watch. The fatalism that everyone gets what he deserves and there's no escaping the cogs of fate is the icing here.

French auteur Bertrand Tavernier transposes Jim Thompson's gritty novel Pop.1280 from the American South to French colonial West Africa. Philippe Noiret is Lucien Cordier, an ineffectual and much put-upon cop in a small dusty town in Senegal just before Word War II. His shrewish wife (Stephane Audran) openly mocks him by cohabiting under their roof with her 'brother' and the other townsfolk despise him for his unwillingness to stand up for himself. But one day without warning, Cordier sheds his cloak of cowardice and transforms into a sort of avenging angel, picking off his tormentors one by one while maintaining an air of studied innocence.

The director beautifully captures the ambience of moral corruption and ennui under colonial rule. The town is flat, dusty and without any natural beauty. The majority of the ruling whites are openly racist and consider the natives as little more than vermin. Their women are no better. Though there are flashes of humour, an air of spiritual damnation hangs over the film like a perpetual shroud. There are no redeeming characters. Though, in the end, Cordier tries to kindle a relationship with the virginal schoolteacher Anne, he might already have been too late to save his soul.

This is a superior, slow-burn crime drama with fine performances from Noiret, Isabelle Huppert (as his mistress) and Stephane Audran. I give it a solid 8.

This movie amazed me. I've read most of Jim Thompson's novels (The Grifters, The Killer Inside Me), and this story "Pop. 1280" is one of his best. It is a complex and dark tale told in first person narrative by a protagonist, the Sheriff in a small Southern town, who is both a liar and a sociopathic killer, yet believes himself to be the good guy just doing the inevitable in his situation while all the while playing the town fool. It would seem a hard novel to adapt to film, but Bertrand Tavernier adapts the story to 1930's Senegal flawlessly, and captures the essence of Jim Thompson's writing better than any other film adaptation I have seen of his books. The cinematography is beautiful, long slow shots languishing on one scene after another perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the mid-day lethargy of the African desert. Great acting here too; Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert and the rest of the cast are superb and utterly convincing in their roles. This film is a gem, one of the best film noirs ever.

This film has quite a few funny events, but the film is unsatisfactory as a whole. I cannot accept the premise that killing a lot of people is really humorous. The various crude remarks about black Africans will likely be offensive to them, not amusing.

Bertrand Tavernier is one of my favorite French director and Philippe Noiret is my favorite French actor. Having said that, it's pretty hard for me to remain coherent when I talk about Coup de torchon, simply because I love it so much. When I saw it for the first time, I wasn't expected such a slap in the face. The first Tavernier film I have ever seen in my life was L627 at the theater and I was only 12 years old. I didn't understand it because I was so young, but when I discovered Coup de Torchon years later, I said to myself that I had to watch L627 again, which I did, and I thought it was a great film also. Coup de Torchon is an adaptation of Jim Thompson's book Pop. 1280, a pioneer in the Noir genre, famous for The Killing, The killer inside me and The Getaway. Coup de Torchon is a very odd film. A strange mix of comedy and revenge thriller. A sort of Film Noir with a tad of comical and grotesque elements in it. Telling the story of Lucien Cordier in the historical context of a small French colonial town of Africa makes the film a lot more original and convincing, and takes the Film Noir genre to a hole new level of excellence. It's dark and violent, but it's also a really fun film to watch, maybe because Noiret and Hupper make such an amazing match. I love the scenery of the film, the dialogues and the surreal and jazzy Philippe Sarde soundtrack. I think this is an incredible film, probably one of Tavernier's best.

I did really quite enjoy Philippe Noiret's performance here, but I couldn't help but wonder if Sir Peter Ustinov wouldn't have had fun with this part too. It's all set in French West Africa just before the start of WWII. His town is a small, largely agrarian and provincial one where "Cordier" is the local cop. To be fair, he's a bit of an hopeless case and everyone from his wife "Hugette" (Stéphane Audran) downwards takes him for a fool. Suddenly though, something snaps. His attitude changes to one of an avenging angel who discovers that he does actually quite enjoy killing people - and he knows full well that nobody cares about the law. His new found, emboldened, character also embarks on a bit of a fling with "Rose" (Isabelle Huppert) and guess what, she's quite keen on getting in on his new community strategy too! It's comedic, yes - but very darkly so as it deals with issues of colonial superiority. Not just with the locals but amongst an hierarchy of their own community that is riddled with double-standards, hypocrisy and odious contradictions. As the story develops, we see an entertaining vision of the obnoxious pursuing the ghastly and just about everyone gets their just desserts. The writing (even via subtitles) is really quite imaginatively pithy; Noiret and Audran have one of those hate/hate relationships that it's a joy to watch, albeit it from a safe distance. It does lose it's way a little towards the end. Bernard Tavernier seems to have run out of steam and has no obvious way of concluding things in as pacy a fashion as the first ninety minutes or so of the story. Still, it uses a degree of satire to cast some delightful aspersions on the colonial classes and I quite enjoyed it.

Tavernier making a film in Francophone west Africa with famous French actors might not suggest its American connection/roots. The film is based on an American novel "Population 1280" by Jim Thompson. Tavernier, who loved and wrote about American films, must have picked Thompson's novel after noticing that Thompson's novel "The Getaway" was the basis of Pekinpah's film and that Thompson had contributed to the scripts of two early Kubrick films "The Killing" and "Paths of Glory." To the credit of Tavernier and his co-scriptwriter, the American tale is transposed to West Africa. Hence, the important line in "Coup de Torchon" (a.k.a. Clean Slate) an African native states--"So the white folks want to be dead before they shake the hand of a black" before refusing to shake the hand of a white Frenchman.

The film is a lovely amalgamation of crime, comedy, racism, and philosophy. "Coup de torchon" brings the team of Tavernier and Philippe Noiret once again after their collaboration on so many films as well as Isabelle Huppert for a second time with the duo. The first shot of Noiret in this film reminds you of the first shot of Rod Steiger in Sergio Leone's "Duck, you sucker." Like Tavernier's "L.627" this film, too, presents a cop with a heart.

Good and evil, a cowardly man, many worthless women, in a worthless place.

A pretty good film, somewhat distant. I wouldn't have recognized Isabelle Huppert if I hadn't known that she would be in the film. Many of the previous comments were incisive and erudite. I don't have much to add, so check those out if you are so inclined.