Max and the Junkmen [Blu-ray]

Director: Claude Sautet Claude Sautet

Overview

In this French-language film, Max is a former judge obsessed with seeing criminals brought to justice. The frustrations of the courtroom, where evidence matters more than guilt, lead him to join the police force. Independently wealthy, he uses all his resources to make criminals pay for their crimes.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/25/2020
UPC:	0738329243623
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:52:00
Sales rank:	36,178

Special Features

Audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan; Theatrial trailer; 1920x1080p

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Michel Piccoli	Max
Romy Schneider	Julia Anna Ackermann
Maurice Auzel	Antoine Chantoiseau
Michel Creton	Robert Saidani
Bernard Fresson	Abel Maresco
François Périer	Rosinsky
Jacques Canselier	Actor
Philippe Sarde	Composer
Georges Wilson	le commissaire
Boby Lapointe	P'tit Lu
Philippe Léotard	Losfeld
Dominique Zardi	Baragui
Danielle Durou	Nicole
Robert Favart	Baraduch
Betty Beckers	Maria
Henri-Jacques Huet	A. Cyriaque dit Dromadaire
Dany Jacquet	Ida
François Perier	Rozinsky
Bernard Musson	L'inspecteur sarcastique à la cantine
Albert Augier	Un client de Lily
Alain Grellier	Guy Laronget
Henri Coutet	Actor
Michel Duplaix	Actor
Chantal Ladesou	Bit part
Jack Lenoir	Un inspecteur

Technical Credits

Claude Sautet

Jean-Loup Dabadie

Claude Sautet	Director,Screenwriter
Raymond Danon	Producer
Roland Girard	Producer
Jean-Loup Dabadie	Screenwriter
Jean Bolvary	Producer
Edmondo Amati	Producer,Producer
Jean Nény	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

In the early '70s, director Claude Sautet (A Simple Story, Un coeur en hiver) made this interesting and unusual crime picture - one of four movies from his catalogue where his two favorite actors, Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider, shared lead billing. Piccoli stars as Max, a judge turned police detective who has become the butt of jokes in his department for his consistent tendency to let wily criminals slip through his fingers. Amid this career lull, he crosses paths with old acquaintance Abel (Bernard Fresson) - now a slimy hoodlum dealing in stolen scrap metal. Max sizes up Abel's desire for a big score, and begins to strategically entrap Max and his cronies by luring them into a bank robbery. To engineer the theft, he must assume a fictitious identity and slyly feed information about the bank to Abel's girlfriend Lily (Schneider) - a prostitute with whom he begins having regular, non-sexual liaisons. Max falls deeply in love with the young woman, however, which threatens to complicate or destroy the set-up. Sautet was always far more drawn to character motivations and ambiguities than the mechanics of plot, and that is what lifts this picture out of the ordinary, from the realm of formula into something more special. The mechanics of the heist itself receive little attention; instead, the writer-director spends the bulk of screen time on the fascinating relationship between Max and Lily. We recognize the depth of Max's feelings from the moment he first spots her, but what of Lily's capacity for reciprocal affection? There is a single moment here that speaks to the picture's greatness - where Lily, apparently drawn to Max's stoicism and lack of corruption, returns to Abel one evening and is visibly overcome by disgust over the sliminess of her boyfriend. She begins to follow through with the set-up, but is she subconsciously aware that she's being used? For a lengthy stretch of the movie, we have no idea - and as such, those passages are mesmerizing and sustain an unusual level of intrigue. The twist conclusion doesn't work - one hops for an open conversation between the two lead characters, where Max confesses his identity and romantic feelings and self-doubts are disclosed; that doesn't happen, and it's a loss. In fact, Max's final actions challenge the movie's plausibility. Until then it's an enormously enjoyable pas-de-deux, that benefits from a couple of superlative lead performances and Sautet's willingness to defy genre convention.