A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I'm one big Jean-Pierre Mocky fan but I have to admit a few of his projects left me baffled at how bad they were. Especially Il Gèle en enfer (see my review on the site), and very close on the list, this one. It's a curious choice that Mocky decided to put this one in his nice DVD collection. Well I'm glad I had a chance to see it, although it amounted to a rather depressing experience. The story is straightforward enough and not uninteresting: a doctor gone bonkers accidentally gets a gun ("la machine à découdre", a pun in French) and decides to use it to raise money from the rich on the French south coast in order to build a hospital for children of war-torn "thirld world" countries. The problem is, Mocky as an actor isn't up to the task (though he does look deranged, grimacing and sweating a lot; on the DVD, he quotes a review finding him "perfect as an actor"!); but he gave himself better roles in earlier movies. His wife-to-be Patricia Barzyk is naked during the whole film, and she sure looks nice. But there are a lot of gratuitous, pointlessly violent scenes. The film is not that very well made (but then no Mocky film is, and it doesn't matter that much), but here there's little to enjoy: no fun, poor action, poor acting (even Mocky regular Jean Abeillé is wasted in a short and awful scene); and horrible music of its time (1985)... still, interesting to see for a Mocky-liker like me (and it made me discover the actor Peter Semler)... but one to be left scratching one's chin to... Another Mocky film, La Bête de Miséricorde from the early 2000s has apparently a similar subject, with a priest-like man killing those who complain to him about their life in order to relieve them... I have a feeling I'll like this one best when I get to see it!