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I love this movie so much

The Worst Film Ever

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie amazed me. I've read most of Jim Thompson's novels (The Grifters, The Killer Inside Me), and this story "Pop. 1280" is one of his best. It is a complex and dark tale told in first person narrative by a protagonist, the Sheriff in a small Southern town, who is both a liar and a sociopathic killer, yet believes himself to be the good guy just doing the inevitable in his situation while all the while playing the town fool. It would seem a hard novel to adapt to film, but Bertrand Tavernier adapts the story to 1930's Senegal flawlessly, and captures the essence of Jim Thompson's writing better than any other film adaptation I have seen of his books. The cinematography is beautiful, long slow shots languishing on one scene after another perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the mid-day lethargy of the African desert. Great acting here too; Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert and the rest of the cast are superb and utterly convincing in their roles. This film is a gem, one of the best film noirs ever.

As happens on occasion with subtitled foreign films I become confused and perplexed at what appears to be the discrepancy between what the characters are doing and/or involved with and what the subtitles have them saying. Such was the case in spades with Coup de Torchon. In this instance the result was to make the characters, particularly the main one, even less accessible as far as trying to understand why they/he did what they were shown doing. I gave this movie 2 stars because of this disembodiment. *I was told some time ago that if a foreign film (or an English speaking one) is not wildly popular when first released, but has something appealing that a distributor thinks might make a few bucks then, in some cases, the bottom line rule gets applied and the subtitling job goes out for bids to companies that don't apply standards that are usually applied to movies with more popular pedigree. Such might be the case with 'Coup de Torchon'.

The main character is a corrupt, weak and feckless officer of the law in a small colonial African village. After enduring insults and beatings, he slowly changes into a kind of Dirty Harry. As in "Nobody's Fool" (Paul Newman) and "As Good As It Gets" (Jack Nicholson), a corrupt man redeems himself by acts of kindness and bravery

Jim Thompson meets Joseph Conrad in a small, dusty town in Senegal. The writing is excellent throughout, delving into themes that most films would never have the guts to handle. Brutal, darkly humorous and brilliantly done. A great, great film noir. Not a movie for those easily offended (though one they should probably see and learn from.)