Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thriller by Alain Corneau
France’s critical reassessment of Hollywood genre pictures gave credibility to filmmakers whose work had been dismissed as lightweight entertainment back in the U.S. And no genre got more love than film noir , a label added after-the-fact to post-war pulp thrillers that focused on the darker side of the American dream. Director Alain Corneau puts these concepts in a cultural blender, reinterpreting the moody, morally ambiguous books and movies that inspired him to produce a trio of films that are both uniquely noir and uniquely French at the same time. Police Python 375 (1976) takes its cue from Dirty Harry but was actually adapted from a 1946 novel used as the basis for The Big Clock and the Kevin Costner-Gene Hackman thriller No Way Out . Yves Montand stars as aging supercop Marc Ferrot who must investigate himself after his lover is murdered by a superior officer. Covering up evidence a...