Dirty Hands

R

1975

1h 42m

Crime

Drama

List

Reviews

48%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Young lovers (Romy Schneider, Paolo Giusti) try to kill her boozing older husband (Rod Steiger) on the Riviera.

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Audience Member

Two thirds of this Chabrol thriller are intriguing and well-plotted. It's classic film noir territory: beautiful Romy Schneider is married to alcoholic and impotent Rod Steiger. A chance encounter with a penniless writer and neighbour leads to a Double Indemnity-type plot. All well and good, but disappointingly the overcooked screenplay veers off the cliff with several twists too many and never recovers. Wonderful cameo by Jean Rochefort as Schneider's lawyer.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

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Audience Member

I've only recently delved into Chabrol's thrillers (after dipping my toe in the water with his first nouvelle vague films (Le Beau Serge, Les Cousins) - and there are some excellent suspenseful movies from which to choose (basically any of the six films between Les Biches in 1968 and Just Before Nightfall in 1971). As with Hitchcock before him (and Chabrol wrote a famous book about the Master of Suspense along with Eric Rohmer), Chabrol deals with issues of guilt and moral complicity with a wry sense of humor. However, I found this international production (starring Romy Schneider and Rod Steiger) left me a bit cold. They are married but she takes a younger lover and they plot to kill him. But things don't go right and both of the men end up dead with Schneider then the prime suspect for the police (who are played rather comically). As the plot unravels there are a few twists and turns but somehow I never quite cared about Schneider or Steiger enough to feel suspense about their fates. I'm not sure whether this is the fault of the acting, the English-dubbed version I watched, the script, or Chabrol. Start somewhere else with his oeuvre.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

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Audience Member

convoluted murder mystery plenty of twists as only French cinema knows how

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

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Audience Member

What's not to like with plot and psychological twists and the beauties of Romy Schneider and St. Tropez?

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

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Audience Member

There are a few shocking relevations, twists and turns, but it all rings somewhat hollow given that it's happening to characters we feel no connection to because very little was done to flesh them out.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

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Audience Member

Though there is perhaps a twist or two too many, the overall result is a film that works on multiple levels, satisfying its generic obligations even as it interrogates the gender assumptions so often at the heart of the thriller genre.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

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Claude Chabrol

Director

Rod Steiger

Louis Wormser

Romy Schneider

Julie Wormser

Paolo Giusti

Jeff Marle

Pierre Santini

Commissaire Villon

François Maistre

Commissaire Lamy

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 3/5

Jul 3, 2005

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Robin Clifford

Reeling Reviews

Rated: 3/5

Apr 2, 2004

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Christopher Null

Filmcritic.com

Rated: 4/5

Aug 17, 2003

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

So much is thrown into the mix, if you don't like one twist in the story there is another to come shortly.

Rated: B+

Jan 1, 2000

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Synopsis

Young lovers (Romy Schneider, Paolo Giusti) try to kill her boozing older husband (Rod Steiger) on the Riviera.

Director: Claude Chabrol
Production Co: Terra Filmkunst, Les Films de la Boétie, Jupiter Generale Cinematografica
Rating: R
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 18, 2016
Runtime: 1h 42m