Watch The Cop For Free

Great Film overall

good back-story, and good acting

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This was a rather more than faithful adaptation of the Pierre Lesou's novel. A fierce story about two vengeance schemes involved one in the other. Two friends decide to avenge the death of one of their own and then kill a cop whose his friend decides to avenge him...Follow me? You have here one of best Michel Constantin's performances ever. Don't miss him facing Michel Bouquet. His lines are unforgettable. But something is missing, if you compare to the book. HOW DAN ROVEL'S CHARACTER GETS OUT OF JAIL? No one seems to have noticed this detail.Typical from Yves Boisset about the power of police, and the way cops sometimes can trespass the law. A true powerful film.

Yves Boisset is a very special director, he has made many good films, most importantly, in my opinion, "The Assassination" (1972), with the great Gian Maria Volontè and many other exceptional actors, and "Dog Day"(1984) , with the unparalleled Lee Marvin. In "The Assassination", as a corrupt lawyer, we find the extraordinary Michel Bouquet, who here, in "The Cop", he is the cop, a policeman like you have not seen in other movies, a cop with an original philosophy, kindred somehow, with Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry. But different! Michel Bouquet is an actor who does not need too many specific means or too many replicas to create memorable characters, Michel Bouquet is an absolute force, only by the way he looks, moves and breathes. Likewise, but in another register, it is Michel Constantin, who also plays a smaller role, but, as usual, natural, impeccable. Françoise Fabian is beautiful and natural. Probably the best part of Gianni Garko. So, Bernard Fresson. Adolfo Celi, a small role too but, as usual, very effective. Rufus, Théo Sarapo, Henri Garcin, Pierre Massimi, the same, very good. Need absolutely to be seen!

I saw this film when it was first released in the US (1970, I believe). I found it pessimistic, ugly, and gratuitously violent. I hated it. However it has stayed in my mind not because of its content but because of the circumstances under which I saw it.I was working the snack counter at a small college-town theater. I don't recall what movie was playing, some inoffensive middle-of-the-road feature that attracted inoffensive middle-of-the-road viewers. The manager had just received Un Conde and wanted to test audience reaction. So he decided to "sneak preview" it--without warning--before the main feature. Looking back I wonder what was going through his mind. Had he even seen the film? At any rate, from almost the first frame characters on screen were getting the crap beat out of them. The audience gasped and began murmuring. The mayhem didn't let up and soon the audience was making for the exits. An angry throng mobbed the ticket counter demanding their money back.In 1970 excessive violence was relatively uncommon in mainstream films, and Un Conde was right at the cutting edge. It certainly wasn't what this audience had come to see. About twenty minutes into the movie the manager finally stopped the show and put on the scheduled picture. But by that time he'd pretty much cleared the house. With all the refunds the till came up awfully light at the end of the evening.

Yves Boisset's "Un condé" (from the French slang for cop) is a sort of Gallic "Dirty Harry", a police thriller that raises awkward questions about how far across the line the good guys can step in order to clear up society's mess. Inspector Favenin (Michel Bouquet) undoubtedly goes too far. When his idealistic but ineffectual partner is killed pursuing the culprits of a gang revenge attack (a pursuit instigated by Favenin himself), the embittered cop, realising that conventional police methods won't work, takes matters into his own hands.At first, it's hard to resist cheering as he takes on the worst of the gang thugs using their own methods. But when his ruthless pursuit for revenge starts to impinge on the more sympathetic characters in the story, including an essentially decent man who gets beaten up in front of his young son, we are forced to question where our sympathies lie.Boisset's functional, low-key direction, while lacking the stylistic flamboyance of Melville, serves the story well, and makes the frequent outbursts of violence all the more shocking. Bouquet is well-cast as the soft-spoken, solitary, buttoned-up and near-psychopathic Favenin, a more complex (and scarier because unpredictable) character than Eastwood's Harry Callahan. Whereas in "Dirty Harry" the hero's methods are questionable but his goals are morally correct, Favenin clearly has more personal motives that are not necessarily consistent with the public good. Even so, his pragmatic boss is willing to overlook his actions provided they can be covered up.In a minor role, Michel Constantin, a stalwart of many French gangster movies, gives one of his best performances here as a fatalistic hired gun; his confrontation with Favenin is a highlight of the film.