Honorable Crooks (1986)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Honorable crooks |
| Original title | Conseil de famille |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1986 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Costa Gavras |
| script | Costa Gavras |
| production | Michèle Ray-Gavras |
| music | Georges Delerue |
| camera | Robert Alazraki |
| cut | Marie-Sophie Dubus |
| occupation | |
| |
Honorable crooks (original title: Conseil de famille ) is a French crime comedy by Costa-Gavras from 1986 with Johnny Hallyday and Fanny Ardant . The novel of the same name by Francis Ryck served as a literary model .
action
After five years in prison, the family man Louis returns to live with his wife and two children. His eleven-year-old son François and his little sister Martine are only now finding out that he is a criminal, as their mother Marie-Anne had led them to believe that their father was in hospital because of an illness and that the doctor had forbidden visits. Louis is celebrating his return with his family and his friend and accomplice Faucon. But instead of finally becoming a righteous citizen, he plans his next coup with Faucon shortly afterwards. At Marie-Anne's request, they go on vacation together in Brittany , where Louis and Faucon continue to work out their plan. Meanwhile, François tries to join a motorcycle gang, whom he tells that his father is in prison for assault. When he steals a motorcycle, his father puts him in a room. Louis is a thief himself, but he forbids his son to steal. Little Martine brings her brother something to eat in the evening and tells him that her father wants to carry out the planned coup in three days. In front of her parents, Faucon and François, Martine has to solemnly swear to keep the family secrets.
Back home, François also wants to take part in the planned break-in. Louis and Faucon are initially against it, as François could be caught by the police and betray them. Despite their misgivings, they and François enter a villa the next evening, where Louis sets about cracking a safe and, after the work is done, steals a valuable necklace. Thereupon they pay a visit to Marie-Anne's wealthy relatives with the intention of winning Marie-Anne's wealthy brother as a silent partner in order to launder the money from the loot. However, they leave only a short time later - Marie-Anne's father is senile and does not want to see her and her snobbish brother is condescending and disapproving. Louis' next break-ins go wrong. Together with Faucon and François, however, he can always escape the sometimes trigger-happy hosts. Over time, however, they become a well-rehearsed team and François turns out to be talented and inventive, which makes his father extremely proud. In the years that followed, the family's fortune grew so much that they could even afford a country house on the Côte d'Azur .
François' reputation as a tech-savvy master thief finally penetrates as far as New York , where the Mafia wants to take him under their wing. While Louis and Faucon travel to New York for training, François meets a young woman named Sophie in a carpentry shop and falls in love with her. When his father and Faucon return, François reveals to them that he no longer wants to be a criminal. He wants to get married and lead a simple, civil life. Louis locks him up in his room. Because after three days he can no longer be able to see Sophie, François agrees to Faucon to travel to New York and work for the mafia. When Faucon informs Louis about this, François calls the police, who arrest Louis and Faucon only a short time later.
background
Director Costa-Gavras, who is best known for politically engaged films like Z (1969), tried his hand at a comedy film for the first time with Ehrbare Ganoven . This is narrated from the first-person perspective by François from the off . Corinne Jorry designed the costumes .
The film premiered on March 19, 1986 in France. In Germany, Ehrbare Ganoven was first shown on television on February 11, 1991 and released on DVD in 2009.
Reviews
The lexicon of international film described Ehrbare Ganoven as "[l] hand-staged crook comedy with many parodic details, whose ironic and satirical approaches are repeatedly broken by hints of seriousness". According to Cinema , “political expert Costa-Gavras” has proven with the film “that he also understands light fabrics”. In summary, the film magazine spoke of a "crook fable with a wink".
Vincent Canby of the New York Times said that the film was better than Costa-Gavras' The Love of a Woman and therefore “not an absolute disaster”, but that it had nothing more to offer than “bleak boredom”. The actors wouldn't have made anything of their roles, even if Fanny Ardant and Guy Marchand at least tried. They were simply lost in a kind of film for which Costa-Gavras had "no talent".
Awards
At the César Awards in 1987 , Rémi Martin was nominated in the Best Young Actor category for the César , which Isaac De Bankolé ultimately won for Black Mic-Mac .
German version
A German dubbed version was made in 1990 by Interopa Film GmbH , Berlin.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Father louis | Johnny Hallyday | Manfred Lehmann |
| Mother Marie-Anne | Fanny Ardant | Viktoria Brams |
| Maximilien Faucon | Guy Marchand | Eberhard Prüter |
| François as a child | Laurent Romor | Marcel Collé |
| François | Rémi Martin | Patrick Winczewski |
| Martine as a child | Juliette Rennes | Julia Lattemann |
| Martine | Caroline Pochon | Marie Bierstedt |
Web links
- Respectable crooks in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Pictures of the film on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Honorable crooks. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ cf. cinema.de
- ↑ “ Family Business […] is something of an improvement. It's not an outright disaster; it's a cheerless bore. […] The actors […] are utterly lost in the clutter of a kind of fiction for which Mr. Costa-Gavras has no talent whatsoever. " Vincent Canby : Conseil de Famille (1986) . In: The New York Times , September 6, 1987.
- ↑ Honorable crooks. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on July 31, 2018 .