PimpinAinttEasy
Dear Lee Marvin,it was almost as if you walked out of Prime Cut and walked into Dog Day. The first scene where you are running across the corn fields - it was a sorry sight because you could hardly run. Just like in Prime Cut. A violent American gangster (Marvin) on the run from the French police hides out at a farm in the French country side. The farm is occupied by a family that would make The Devil's rejects seem like pious Christians. A whisky guzzling whore house visiting kid, a nympho-maniacal woman, alcoholic and perverted man of the family, his murderous wife and Swedish lesbian hitchhikers are what the aging Marvin has to deal with. There are many nude scenes and gratuitous violence. The location with sprawling fields of corn and the helicopter shots of action scenes are great. The film is really out there. I love films like these that really push the envelope in terms of strange relationships and weird characters. This film deserves a blu-ray.Best Regards, Pimpin.(8/10)
bkoganbing
Canicule has the distinct aroma of tax write off and trip to France for Lee Marvin in one of his last and least films of his career.Marvin plays American bank robber Jimmy Cobb who is on the run and now in France. The French authorities want this guy bad, they're even armed to the teeth. The beginning is a homage to Sam Peckinpaugh and The Wild Bunch with a shootout on the Paris streets where a whole lot of people get themselves killed in a botched attempt to take Marvin.Lee's on the loose with the loot from a bank job that was obviously committed in America because it's in dollars as opposed to francs. But he manages to get to the Normandy countryside where he falls into the hands of a family of farmers who've got their own ideas about him and his loot and his reputation. And by no means is it unanimous.Canicule is a French attempt to make an American style gangster film and they're not bad at it when doing things like Lemmy Caution with American expatriate Eddie Constantine. This one could have used the real Sam Peckinpaugh however directing this mostly French cast of players with Lee Marvin and Tina Louise. The dubbing and editing is hardly first rate. Marvin is in bad health which the camera plainly shows.As another reviewer stated Gorky Park is a far better film. That and Death Hunt are the last two really great films Lee Marvin made.
fedor8
Incredibly trashy French thriller about on-the-run outlaw Marvin who seeks refuge on a French farm only to find demented peasants there. The film features a collection of perverts, lunatics, degenerates, and oddball situations which are often original and sometimes amusing. Everyone in this film wants to kill something, including even the grandma (who kills herself), and the boy (wants to kill Marvin). Could have been a better film if only some of the acting (some of the cops, the older brother, and the pimps/gangsters) were better, and if the dialog were less boring and cleverer. The music is bad, especially at the beginning, where it sounds like a porno movie soundtrack. The plot and the premise are good, but the script, with its crap dialog and comic-book characters, is a mediocrity. Some of the acting was not bad (Marvin, the boy, Miou-Miou, and the nymphomaniac). What the hell kind of a name is Miou-Miou?
MadCow5703
This film was just downright depressing for me as a sleaze-movie lover and a fan of the great Lee Marvin. It had all the right elements, but the director, Yves Boisset, really screwed this film up. I blame him for everything that is wrong with it. His direction is so sloppy and third-rate I couldn't even tell what the hell was going on half the time. It could have been an interesting, if somewhat disturbing, black comedy. As other reviewers have stated, there are similarities between this film and Marvin's Prime Cut, but that film found a good balance between the repulsive and the humorous. This one fails on almost every level. It isn't even worthy enough to go into detail of its flaws. Also, Lee Marvin is totally wasted in this film. Once the first 5 minutes are over he is given absolutely nothing to do. Boisset had this incredible actor in the twilight of his career to work with. He could have made it into a sort of Last Great Film for the man, a study of a bad guy at the end of his life played by an actor famous for playing bad guys near the end of his life. Instead, that honor goes to Gorky Park. But I guess none of that really matters as Marvin was very sick during the making of this film, and you can tell. He seems tired, bored, and physically he looks haggard and ill. You can practically see his skull through his skin. This is NOT the way you will want to remember this great actor, so please, if you like Lee Marvin, do yourself a favor and honor his memory by never ever watching this movie. You have been warned.
AD
