Foregone Conclusion

AMERICANS IN PARIS or parisians in America are nothing new. The results have run the gamut from Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron waltzing past Dufyseque backdrops to the glitzy elegance of Diva to alas the little croissant establishment that is slowly swallowing up Harvard Square. Bob Swaim's new movie, La Balance, rates somewhere in between. While it takes place en frangais, the director seems to want to keep reminding us that it is American with its raucous combination of quick action violence coupled with seamy loves scenes. That desire turns out to be about as subtle as Clint Eastwood and his merry men soft shoeing their way through the paris casbah.

The story begins with the creation of a new teritorial police squad for combatting a crime wave in Belleville, a distinctly unpicturesque part of paris. The group of policemen are all right-something of a mostly crew. The captain, who is still emotionally fighting the Algerian War, is determined to win this time. There is paluzzi brighter than the others, but smarting from knowing that he is really just as small a fry as the drug-pushers and pickpockets he is out to get. The Belgian, tall, goony, and love-starved, looks and acts like a clumsy kid with a congenital case of Walkman might be expected to.

It is the cops job to play just as dirty as the criminals they're out to get. The problem, however, is their tendency to bungle everything they tough, bringing calamity to the guilty and innocent alike. When the movie begins, the police had been losing nearly all of their informers. It is removed that they had, intentionally set up the last one. Hence, as there are no volunteers for new informers the brigade decides to find its own candilates. They decide on Dede Laffont. Who had once worked for Roger Massina, the leader of the Belleville gang. Dede is a low-key villain who resembles a civil servant more closely than a thugbut had had to leave the gang because of a jealousy over Nicole (Nathalie Baye), a prostitute with whom he was-and is-madly in love. Paluzzi and company decide to somehow, get enough information out of Dede and Nicole to get Massina.

FROM THAT POINT onwards, the conclusion is foregone. Caught between the police and the gangsters. Dede and Nicole find themselves victimized. They are repeatedly hauled into the station, humiliated, threatened, beaten, and abused. The two, however, know that informing would mean almost certain death. Besides doing so would go against what little honor they have left.

The relationship between the lovers. Dede and Nicole, provides a marvelous contract to the rest of Belleville. At one point we see Dede sneaking up to Nicole who is gobbling down some cake at a patisserie. "I am cooking leveret stuffed with pistachios, parsley, and a hint of garlic for dinner. "Two leverets," he protests. Baye and Leotard manage to make an incongruous relationship seem convincing and touching. The very thing that makes the couple so vulnerable to both the gangsters and the police alike, their mutual loyalty is at the some time, the only positive thing in the story. If only the could be left alone. But they can't be and we know that from the very beginning, which makes the rest of the movie a some what monotonous round of idyllic love scenes interrupted by bungled chase scenes and a few interludes of desperate scheming on both sides.

The two leads are probably the best thing about the film, with Nathalie Baye particularly standing out as Nicole. Baye, remembered for an excellent performance in The Return of Martin Guerre. plays another ambiguous heroine. She infuses the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold with a mixture of toughness, humour, and catlike grace. She is actually believable as the prostitute who makes 30,000 a month while at the same time deeply in love.

Dede's ex-colleagues the small-time hoods chased up and down the Bellevile streets by the police, provide economic relief particularly one Mohammad Djerbi: "I don't deal. These are my life savings. Don't touch me-I'm a tourista. This cocaine? It's not mine. I found it-The money's to buy a washing machine for my mother." etc...etc...ad nauseum.

All in all, La Balance makes good viewing. Some of the acting is stellar a number of scenes more than make up for the predictability of the rest. The three Cesars (French "Oscars") this movie has garnered, however, probably have more to do with exoticism than with cinematic merit. Thinking of a Maxwell House coffee as Cafe American, after all will make it slightly more drinkable.