Christian Zanetti

Good dope is becoming rare in the North of Paris. Drugstores are being raided by junkies and gangs are nervous, fighting each others: the 'Viets', the 'Blackies', the 'Arabs', the neo-nazis 'Justiciers' and some mean gays. Vincent (Daniel Auteuil) is the good cop coming from Marseilles where he was a gangster. He's a soft method guy but also kicks assses hard and throw lethal dialog lines when needed. With the precious help of 'l'Arbalète'* (Marisa Berenson**), a tox' prostitute ex-member of Vincent's former gang, he will try to put order in that mess. There's also a violent and racist cop (Marcel Bozzuffi), Algeria veteran with hard methods, whose role could be more than to protect and to serve.

Three young men - Jacques, Pierre, and Michel - share an apartment in Paris, and have many girlfriends and parties. Once, during a party, a friend of Jacques' tells him he has a quite compromising package to deliver, and asks him if he can leave it discreetly at their place. Jacques agrees and, as he works as a steward, flies away for a one-month trip in Japan, telling Pierre and Michel about the package. Then, one of Jacques' former girlfriends drops a baby before their door, making Pierre and Michel believing it is the package they are waiting for. Their lives are then completely changed.

An aviation magnate takes desperate measures to regain custody of his kids after he is granted minimal visitation rights by a harsh female judge. It's true that Manu Barnes is free-spirited and for much of his twelve year marriage to Mathilde that he has been too centered on his career, but he does love his kids and believes he should see them more often than one weekend a month. The judge called him irresponsible and he decides to disprove her words by kidnapping Chloe, the judge's strong-willed adolescent daughter. He takes the girl to a remote, snow-bound mountain cabin. Unfortunately, she thinks Manu is sexually attracted to her. A disaster nearly occurs there, but Chloe manages to get back to Paris. Though he knows a private detective is trailing him, the determined Manu decides to abduct his kids and take them out of the country.

Students of film history will appreciate the many tributes to famous films of yore which appear in this first-time feature directed and written by former drama teacher Francis Huster. In the story, a mild-mannered bank clerk has heroic dreams of being a real he-man. Given his diffident, shy nature, it comes as a bit of a surprise that not only does he actually have a girlfriend, but he has managed to get her pregnant. However, she doesn't fit his image of himself, and he can't bring himself to marry her. When the bank he works in is robbed by a daring group which includes a magnetically attractive woman, the clerk throws his lot in with them and becomes an outlaw.

In 1951, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the private detective Nestor Burma was commissioned by an insurance company to find stolen jewelery. The deal seemed easy and Burma got an appointment with a well-known black trumpet player in the neighborhood who could provide him with information. But the musician does not come and we find him murdered. The investigation becomes more complicated and Nestor must find an alibi so as not to be suspected of the crime.

Charles Boulin decides to sell his small apartment on Avenue Foch to purchase a little hotel in the western suburbs of Paris. But the hotel happens to be a decaying house in Argenteuil. He wanted to surprise his wife and daughter, but it soon turns into a nightmare when they learn they have move into this shack, during the work, along with unscrupulous workers ...

In this film that sends up the foibles of filmmaking, a standard crew of actors, stage-hands, director, writers, producers, and others are gathered for the filming of a 45-second automobile commercial. Each role embodies an archetype (the harried director who has a deadline to meet, the Scrooge production manager who has a budget to meet, and the writers who are above these mundane concerns), and these personalities drive the working actors over the edge until they decide to lock them up and do their own thing -- happiness can be just around the corner if you are in the driver's seat. Hopefully, the actors will be able to bow out before the police catch on to the situation.