I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

...of all the Godard films I've seen, and I've seen practically all of them. I don't care much about the plot: who Jim Fox Warner is, and why he takes such a casual approach to what must be a big fight, who Tiger Jones is either, and why the two girls are hanging around the hotel suite; I don't care much about the old Mafioso who seems to have his finger in every pie (played marvelously by Alain Cuny, with that splendidly seamed face). The 40 million Francs that Chenal owes are just a detail; the cheating that his wife Francoise is doing doesn't move me much... no, all these details are but a backdrop for the wonderful lesson in cinema that Godard gives us here. I've never seen him take such care over rooms and corridors, kitchens and storerooms as he does here. It's lovely--what he does with this Parisian hotel makes this a great experience. Narrative has never interested him much, but it doesn't matter: visuals and music are used very well throughout.Nathalie Baye has never been more beautiful on screen: Godard's camera is in love with her. Claude Brasseur gives a good performance as the pilot whose airline is coming apart.

I'm not very admirable of Jean-Luc Godard's body of work on the whole after the mid 1970s. It may be snobbish to say this, or maybe I just don't "get" films like Hail Mary or Nouvelle Vague or In Praise of Love (though the last one does have its moments), but after the 1960s, going slowly at first into the 70s and then finally becoming all too apparent in the 80s, Godard lost something that made his films so special beforehand. He could put so much of his experimentation and poetry and quotations and little tics and oddities that made him such an iconoclast *and* make them entertaining and even sometimes, when warranted, have an actual story somewhere in the inspired chaos of his direction. But in looking at something like Hail Mary or King Lear or even Passion it's all a lot of less-than-half baked ideas, overlong shots of beaches, and generally boring semantics. This, sadly, is a chunk of what happened to a Godard running on steam from his glory years as an auteur.This ranting and castigating said, Godard does have some moments in this period that are striking and memorable and solid cinema; the best being First Name: Carmen and, most recently as what is at the moment his final feature film, Notre Musique. Detective, also, is one of them, if also sometimes a little shaky and awkward going between the rigorous attention to having characters real out of books and looking or acting unrealistic or in one-note tones as well as a solid B-movie plot. The latter concerns a detective (I believe played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, who does a great job going between serious and comedy in his first Godard film since La Gai Savoir) snooping around a hotel trying to find out about the death of "The Price", while at the same time a boxing promoter is getting into some heat with some over-paid debts, and at the same time sleeping with the mafioso's wife (I think this last part, hopefully I'm clear on this point).Luckily, Godard, working under a "Commercial" framework- ironic considering that this is commercial when compared to everything else Godard was doing at the time and made this in order to make the "controversial" Hail Mary- is able to slip in some funny and cool and actually engaging bits of dialog and quotes and ruminations by characters, and he's able to tag a hold of the plot a bit too. He also understands the jokey-ness of doing an homage to gangster and boxing pictures of the noir era in full color, without a clear narrative thread all of the time, and plays around with it, successfully. This doesn't make it automatically a great picture or as daring precisely as his earlier work. But it is a good sign; sometimes, perhaps, a director like Godard needs an Alain Sarde to reel him in just a tad and then the collaboration works out better as opposed to... King Lear.

THEME: A murder in a hotel room. Who was killed and why? And by who? Is it past or present? And does it even matter? Three characters are detectives watching the story unfold and interacting with it, much like we, the audience. They piece together the clues to a story that eventually becomes their own; folding between the facts of a crime committed two years ago that repeats itself within the film and eventually leads both us and them towards the actions of the film's final act. It's subtle, but presented in Godard's typical style that many seem to have a problem with. DECONSTRUCTION #1: Here we have a detective film about detective films and about the relationship in such films between the characters and the audience. So we have ourselves represented by Laurent Terzieff, Aurelle Doazan and Jean-Pierre Léaud, who hide out in a cramped hotel room and observe the entrance of the building with the aid of small video camera which presents the image back again on a TV monitor.CINEMA: If you're familiar with Godard's work then such devises should be recognisable, with the film using the clichés of detective cinema as window-dressing to express greater themes on the notions of relationships, as well as the role of cinema itself. We also have the self-referential aspect suggested by the opening shot, in which the scene that we are looking at and hear commentary on turns out to be something that has already happened, played back from the detective's surveillance video. We also have the notion of film as a background cacophony, with a number of scenes taking place in rooms where television sets conspire to distract us from the action at hand. DECONSTRUCTION #2: Three characters caught up in the clichés of a post-war crime picture, with a secondary plot about money and a farcical plan from both sides to double-cross the Mafia and each other. Does it matter? Yes and no. I disagree with the first reviewer who claims that this film is something of a throwaway in Godard's career; one that puts formal experimentation over content and theme. The plot is silly, but it's silly for a reason and goes back to Godard's earliest film, À bout de soufflé (1960), in which he played with the codes and conventions of American gangster cinema in a way that was progressive and entirely deconstructive.ACTEURS: The film works as a result of the perfect casting. In fact, I'd say that the acting in this film is far better than any other film of Godard's that I have seen, and I've seen 25 of them. Léaud is obviously something of a regular in the films of Godard and his manic energy and uncomplicated air of boyish precociousness as this mysterious detective - trying to piece together a murder that may have happened or may be about to happen - is as bright as it was in films like Masculin, féminin (1966) and La Chinoise (1967). Likewise, Nathalie Baye, familiar from the director's earlier, more experimental feature Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980) gives one of her best performances as a despondent housewife caught between two men as she tries to retrieve money to start a new life, but remains unsure of which man to draw allegiance to. The two men are boxing promoter and American cinema construct Johnny Hallyday, who breezes through the film chain-smoking and shooting pool as gangsters and cops threaten his plans from both sides, and Claude Brasseur, a pilot and the husband of Baye's character, once again, desperate to play both sides off against one another for the benefit of financial gain.DECONSTRUCTION #3: Once again, we have Godard reducing the characters to meagre iconographic constructs that are placed in a knowingly cinematic environment that is continually challenged by the director's experimentations with content and form. Despite this however, the characters remain likable, intelligent and recognisable, with the convincing performances from the incredibly talented cast managing to compete with the cold, deconstructive formality that Godard strives for in his presentation. L'ARGENT: A film made for financial gain about financial gain, or at least, the promise of such. According to film critic Colin McCabe, Détective (1985) was produced as a favour to Alain Sarde so as to secure the funding for the director's dream project - the subsequent 'Je vous salue, Marie' (1985) - and this notion of desperation, and the wanton pursuit of money is almost self-referential in design. CRITIQUE: I honestly can't understand why so many admirers of Godard's work found this film disengaging. If you're already familiar with Godard's characteristic approach to cinema, then half of the work is already done. For me, the film was rich in character and ideas, and intelligently put together in a way that made the viewing of the film interesting and unique.GODARD: Many would have you believe that Godard peaked in 1967, but this simply isn't the case. He's produced many fine films - Détective included - that require patience and perception on the part of the audience, and all released post-1980. This particular film might be considered a throwaway work by many Godard fans, but I would politely disagree. Like his best work, Détective is filled with ideas and a sharp commentary on the nature of cinema and the relationship between the director, the film, the characters and the audience. It does take work, but I feel that the work is worth it when we're dealing with something as interesting and progressive as this; with Godard throwing in all sorts of little jokes and observations (the detective as Prospero, aided by a character named Ariel, and with Léaud as the comic personification of Caliban, who eventually overcomes his master), whilst simultaneously turning in one of his most radical and well-rounded deconstructions on the nature of film and film viewing.

The films in Godard's late (and not yet over) period present some of the greatest challenges to cineasts. Detective is no exception. It is extraordinarily complex in narrative (or, more precisely, anti-narrative), visual composition, and editing structure. Unfortunately, I don't think it's worth it. It's kind of a parody of a detective film (the one in this film is a hotel dick), but it's nearly impossible to figure out what's going on. It can be quite beautiful in its visuals and editing patterns, but never beautiful enough to make it worth seeing. It's not terrible, but, then again, it's not good, either. 6/10P.S. First off, yes, the little girl IS Julie Delpy, in case you were wondering.P.P.S. Remember when Martin Scorsese made his version of Cape Fear for MGM because they allowed him to make the highly personal The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ? Well, he may have gotten that idea from Godard. Detective was made as a straight commercial offering to the studio that produced his highly controversial Hail Mary. It's strange to think of Detective as a commercial venture, though!