DOBERMAN

France, 1997, 103 minutes, Colour.
Vincent Cassel, Tcheky Karyo, Monica Bellucci, Romain Duris.
Directed by Jan Kounen.

Doberman was something of a cult film for audiences and reviewers when it was released linked to the films and style of Quentin Tarantino. Offbeat criminals, grim violence, often stylised, and a black sense of humour, and something of a cynical presentation of both criminals and the sadistic police chief in pursuit of the criminals.

The film is directed by Jan Cloonan, who directed Vincent Cassel in the unusual western, Blueberry, and, in a different tone, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. Cassel was making an early appearance in film after his impact in La Haine two years earlier. He is a commanding screen presence and in his subsequent career could play loathsome characters, historical characters, and sometimes sympathetic characters. He appears in this film with his then wife, Monica Bellucci. Tcheky Karyo is the intense police inspector, unscrupulous in his his pursuit of criminals, especially Doberman.

The film begins with quite an odd prologue. It is a baptism sequence, criminals in attendance, guns as gifts. The ceremony is performed by a strange priest, difficult to know whether he is authentically ordained or not, although throughout the film he stops to pray and has rosary beads as well as the Divine Office. But is an integral part of the gang, and quite unscrupulous.

The young man grows up, as a heritage of gangster life, has little fear of danger to his own life. In some ways, is a comic-book character, in appearance, little character within except of recklessness that leads him to crime, robberies, killings.

The centre of this film is a bank robbery and the getaway. The police chief and his assistants, whom he treats violently, are in pursuit, take the law into their own hands, and bear down on the criminals, especially Doberman.

After the robbery, there is the pursuit, chases, cars, bikes, through the city, in the countryside, a siege, some of Doberman’s associates being killed, and an ultimate confrontation, violent, between Doberman and the police.

While Tarantino admirers relish the almost-no-holds-barred approach to characters and action, the film is often very ugly and would be offputting to many audiences who do enjoy crime thrillers.