Dirty Hands

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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 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review 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 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member convoluted murder mystery plenty of twists as only French cinema knows how Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/15/23 Full Review Audience Member What's not to like with plot and psychological twists and the beauties of Romy Schneider and St. Tropez? Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review 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 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review 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 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Dirty Hands

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