Crime

  • Cédric Jimenez – La French AKA The Connection (2014)

    2011-2020Cédric JimenezCrimeFranceThriller

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    A stylish, 70’s-period crime thriller inspired by true events, The Connection tells the story of real-life Marseilles magistrate Pierre Michel (Academy Award, Winner Jean Dujardin, The Artist, The Wolf of Wall Street) and his relentless crusade to dismantle the most notorious drug smuggling operation in history: the French Connection.

    In his crosshairs is charismatic and wealthy kingpin, Gatean “Tany” Zampa (Gilles Lellouche, Point Blank, Mesrine: Killer Instinct), who runs the largest underground heroin trade into the States. Though the fearless and tenacious Michel, aided by a task force of elite cops, will stop at nothing––including boldly orchestrated drug raids, devastating arrests, and exacting interrogations––to ensure the crime ring’s demise, Zampa’s “La French” always seems one step ahead.Read More »

  • Serdar Akar – Barda (2007)

    2001-2010CrimeSerdar AkarThrillerTurkey

    Plot
    A group of young high society friends, aged between 18 and 25, are gathered at a friend’s bar that they frequent for the night. But when they finish off their last beer and prepare to head home they find themselves held captive at gunpoint by five strangers. Bound and gagged, they are tortured, raped, and murdered until the next morning. The gang who have captured them have no clear reason, they just want to punish these young people for everything left incomplete in their lives.Read More »

  • Koji Wakamatsu – Otoko goroshi onna goroshi: hadaka no zyudan (1969)

    1961-1970CrimeEroticaJapanKoji Wakamatsu

    Description: Welcome in the underworld, on your left there’s some gangsters, on your right be careful there’s shootings, murders, betrayals… Enjoy the jazzy mood !
    Three killers stole money and drugs from a gangsters meeting. They left with a hostage and a lot of dead bodies behind. Well, that’s not a big deal for them, they stay relax, and don’t rush to sell the drugs. After the massacre, they just go back to their flat and spend a good time. Except one of them, who decides otherwise. He’s tired of staying there doing nothing, and so leave with the hostage. Does he want to start his life again or he’s just too ambitious ?
    Wakamatsu has already shown the underworld, but until now, it was just a bunch of men living out of the system whose function, was to disturb the story of the prime characters.Read More »

  • Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Liebe ist kälter als der Tod AKA Love Is Colder Than Death (1969)

    1961-1970CrimeDramaGermanyRainer Werner Fassbinder

    Quote:
    For his feature debut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder fashioned an acerbic, unorthodox crime drama about a love triangle involving the small-time pimp Franz (Fassbinder), his prostitute girlfriend, Joanna (future Fassbinder mainstay Hanna Schygulla), and his gangster friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel). With its minimalist tableaux and catalog of New Wave and Hollywood references, this is a stylishly nihilistic cinematic statement of intent.Read More »

  • Edward Yang – Mahjong aka Couples (1996)

    1991-2000ComedyCrimeEdward YangTaiwan

    Review:
    Mahjong (1996) is in many ways Yang’s greatest Satire, but has, at the same time, the beating pulse of a real dramatic story. In plays on the perception of Taiwan by foreign entities, urban locales, love, father/son relationships, and of course, themes of business & greed that Yang most vehemently loathes. The story is told through a variety of different viewpoints, but we are centered on a small gang of friends/hustlers, apparently led by Red Fish (Tang Congsheng), and consisting of Luen-Luen (Ke Yulun), a gentle-hearted translator, Hong Kong (Chen Chang of Crouching Tiger fame), a ladies man who is able to charm his way into any woman’s pants, and Little Buddha (the same actor who played “Cat” in Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day), a fake Feng-Shui expert who is used in the gang’s various scams. Read More »

  • Alberto Rodríguez – La isla mínima AKA Marshland (2014)

    2011-2020Alberto RodríguezCrimeSpainThriller

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    With Unit 7, Alberto Rodriguez paid homage to his native Seville whilst producing a fine urban thriller. Now he does the same for rural Spain, moving an hour south to the marshlands of Andalucia. While 7 was explosive, Marshland is noirishly tense on different levels, its tight focus on character, its realism, it’s sense of place and its social critique adding up to a grippingly intense whole — and that’s not to mention it’s satisfyingly twisting plotline. Though puzzlingly it’s been overlooked by the Spanish Film Academy as the country’s foreign film nomination, Marshland merits international exposure as an example of both one of the year’s best Spanish-language films and of how to fold significance into genre.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Cul-de-sac (1966)

    1961-1970ComedyCrimeRoman PolanskiUnited Kingdom

    In search of help, two wounded gangsters on the run find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Blackmail (talkie version) (1929)

    1921-1930Alfred HitchcockCrimeThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened.Read More »

  • Pierre Chenal – Le Dernier Tournant AKA The Last Turning (1939)

    Drama1931-1940CrimeFrancePierre Chenal

    Plot summary:
    Frank, a vagabond, arrives at a service station on a mountain road near to Marseilles. The kindly old owner, Nick, offers him a job which he accepts. Frank is instantly attracted to Nick’s young wife, Cora, and they have a passionate affair. The two lovers plan to kill Nick so that they can profit from his life insurance. Having made Nick’s death look like an accident, they are acquitted of his murder. However, fate has a cruel twist in store…Read More »

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