As to the plot, the best you can say is that, well, you can see, sort of, what it is getting at. Really a cleverly conceived policier, it follows the tracks of Inspector Lechat (French for "the cat") as he hacks through the thicket of subsidiary crimes that complicate and obstruct the investigation of an apparent murder. Director Claude Lelouch doesn't delineate the network of interconnected but independent crimes with a clear comprehension of the total picture, but rather, as usual for him, with an impressionist's spotty and specialized interests. Among the loosely strewn charms in this movie: a friskily disobedient police dog; a jaded, unscandalized attitude about such police indiscretions as ticket fixing and pilfering from confiscated loot; a patient, sympathetic attention to the emotional shadings of the actors; and above all, the dazzling centerpiece of the movie, a one-vehicle chase sequence in which the cops try out a timetable theory of the crime (could the dead man's wife have left the movie theater, gone home, and gotten back to her seat before movie's end?), racing from the city to the country and back again, first by car, and then, when that proves too slow, by motorcycle -- a sequence which confirms Lelouch's standing as the foremost aficionado of speed among all French artists, excepting maybe Françoise Sagan. With Serge Reggiani, Philippe Leotard, and Michele Morgan. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.