Bertrand Blier's film adaptation of his own novel (the title in French translates properly as Balls) is an exercise in tracking shots, smooth and light-on-the-feet, to keep up with the cross-country sprinting and joy-riding of its two punk heroes. Things come very easily to this petty and pretty pair -- stolen cars, stolen cash, stolen kisses -- as streets, houses, trains, an entire neighborhood and an entire town are helpfully evacuated so that there is nothing to interfere with their open expression of hit-and-run free-living. This twosome can grow a bit wearisome for their inability to act other than with machismo, braggadocio, abusiveness, and destructiveness; and the movie itself can grow that way as well. Its sense of fun, though, is challenging, to put it mildly. And it is always handsomely photographed, by Bruno Nuytten, in sedate colors and in some bracing open-air settings -- a resort town in the off-season, a Corot-ish man-made canal lined with trees. In its infrequent best moments (such as when one of the two toughs circles around and around a department store detective, swapping boasts and insults), it enables you to refrain from taking sides. Gerard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, Miou-Miou, Jeanne Moreau. (1974) — Duncan Shepherd
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