Coup de Torchon (1981)

Original title

Coup de torchon

Directed by

Bertrand Tavernier

Genre

drama film, comedy film, crime film

Country

France

Runtime

2h 08m

Rated

16

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 220 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A lazy and disrespected police chief in a small French West African town decides to clean up his corrupt community by murdering local criminals. He expects the killings to earn him respect but finds himself in an absurd spiral of violence and hypocrisy.

slow-burndarkly comicbleakunsettlingabsurdtensesatiricalcynical

What happens

Coup De Torchon (also known as Clean Slate) is a 1981 French satirical neo-noir dark comedy crime film directed by Bertrand Tavernier and adapted from American author Jim Thompson's 1964 crime novel Pop. 1280. Starred by Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Pierre Marielle. The film tells the story of a lazy, useless and disrespected police chief who becomes a cold-blooded killer and goes on a killing spree of local "villains" to "clean" his corrupt town and gain respect, reputation and honor. The film changes the novel's setting from an American Southern town to a small town in French West Africa. The film had 2,199,309 admissions in France and was the 16th most attended film of the year. It received the Prix Méliès from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics as the best French film of 1981. Coup De Torchon was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 55th Academy Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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