System of justice

Before watching this movie, I read comments how people compare Deux hommes dans la ville (1973) to the famous story of Les Misérables. Now that I've seen this, I agree with them. Jean Gabin and Alain Delon star in this moving movie about an ex-convict who tries to have a new life, but a police won't let him.

Germain Cazeneuve (Gabin) is an educator and it's his job to convince the prison's chief that some convicts will do no harm anymore for the society if they are freed. One day he vouches for Gino Strabliggi (Delon), who has served 10 out of 12-year sentence for robbery. Strabliggi finds an honest work and avoids his old friends, but a police inspector (Michel Bouquet) keeps tailing him, especially when he learns Strabliggi's new girlfriend works in a bank. In the end, Strabliggi loses his patience and killed the inspector.

The director José Giovanni who also wrote the scenario, had got a presidential pardon while in death row. This movie, which has a tragic end, successfully made me love the main characters. God forgives, but society won't even forget. Inspector Goitreau who tails Strabliggi is like a mad man, obsessed by his principle that a criminal is always a criminal, no way he can be changed. He ignores Strabliggi's new boss's opinion that Strabliggi is the best worker he's ever had. He also tries make a trap by telling a criminal he has caught, that his old friend Strabliggi has grassed him. The solicitor's speech in the trial gives an impression that it's the society who sends a man to guillotine. Killing a policeman is punished by the maximum sentence, but in this case, like Cazeneuve's opinion, the justice should know better about the man it judges. This is one of the few movies which left sadness in my heart. There is no ending credits, and it ends with a blackness, while the beautiful theme song still plays on, as if asking us to think about what we have seen. Also starring is young Gerard Depardieu, as a youth who is ready for his first crime.