The Inquisitor (1982)

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Garde à Vue is a sound police procedural & Lino Ventura, whether cop or criminal, is always reliable. His Inspecteur Gallien was every bit as good as I'd expected & Michel Serreault was quite adept as the suspect Martinaud too. Romy Schneider as his wife, however, seemed stiff & wooden — tho that could have been intentional.That said, Gallien was the only one whose behavior seemed at all realistic. All other human interactions — including those of the other cop, Belmont — seem peculiar if not bizarre. Even Martinaud, tho well acted, seems forced & not quite lifelike.The plot-line leads nowhere & parachuting in the real killer for a surprise ending like that strikes me as cheesy. What kind of moron reports his car stolen, knowing he'd left a murdered child's corpse in his trunk? I can't recall Schneider's reasons for living down the hall rather than getting a divorce, but her suicide struck me as more bathetic than dramatic.I know, I know, criminals can be exceedingly stupid, many cases end up being solved by sheer fluke & people do inexplicable things. Gallien aside tho, everything these people do or say strikes me as surreal. Maybe it's supposed to? I dunno. I know this film is considered a classic; I just wish I could say I enjoyed it.

Those who watch French films either to improve their knowledge of French cinema or to learn subtle nuances of French language cannot remain indifferent to the charms of the great French actor Lino Ventura. There is some kind of "JE NE SAIS QUOI" type of quality in him which makes him stand apart from the usual group of French actors. Garde à Vue sees him paired against Michel Serrault who is also considered as one of France's important actors.This entire film is their indispensable vehicle to deliberate about justice,law and unusual methods of police procedures.A deft cat and mouse game with limited movement could be considered as this film's apt description.In the midst of these two towering figures,there are also some minor figures who steal the show on their own.Director Claude Miller achieves this effect by casting Guy Marchand as a police inspector and Romy Schneider as the main suspect's wife.The dialogs penned by Michel Audiard have a certain kind of literary aura to them.This is one reason why viewers would be more interested in pricking up their ears in order not to miss any line.Film critic Lalit Rao saw this film during Franco-German mystery and thriller film festival organized by Alliance Française de Bangalore and Goethe Institut in 1992.

At the beginning of this movie, while credit titles are still running, you are immersed in an atmosphere that mix your feelings, with dark winter night, clapping rain on windows and a marvelous music (composed by Georges Delerue) which evoke merry-go-round, barrel organ and festive childhood.And then the music stops and you enter in an austere police office for a questioning on the murder of two children.No show off. No special effects. Dialogue.And you discover how sad and lonesome adults can be sometimes in their games or duties.Excellent movie.

Nothing revolutionary here; just impeccably elegant, restrained cinema.GARDE A VUE is confined almost exclusively to a drab police station, and mostly to one interrogation room, but director Claude Miller (who made the wonderful film THIS SWEET SICKNESS, among others) intercalates spare glimpses of exterior tableaux as minimalist locale scenography. Miller's restraint, especially early on, is breathtaking, and his exquisite handling of the consequently-pivotal interior mise-en-scene makes for captivating viewing.Lino Ventura is superb as usual, succeeding to legitimize a character that, on paper, is cliche: the laconic, hard-nosed, world-weary homicide detective. Ventura lives the role, making it completely believable, even though the script allows us little access to his inner workings; the film ends at the very moment it appears he will be forced to confront his failure for the first time.Michel Serrault is equal to the task as the suspected child-killer who shrewdly spars with the single-minded flic. The exchanges between the two are more-often-than-not pregnant with tension and the aura of a constantly metamorphosing playing field for a battle of wits. Serrault's character is by turns deplorably haughty and cunning, and pitiable; then later....The "message" of GARDE A VUE, if one were to search for one, is a condemnation of police methodology and the kind of pressures that make a cop over-zealous to, if necessary, close cases at the expense of justice. For most of its length though the film shines as nothing more than an exemplar of how to turn a potentially soporific set-bound scenario into a suspenseful drama of the utmost cinematic economy.