646f9e108c A fugitive on the run from the law and carrying several million dollars hides out in the house of a farm family. The tables turn when the family turns out to be even more criminally oriented than he is, and begins to terrorize him instead of the other way around. Canicule or Dog day is completely bonkers. It is a cartoon really, but a pretty violent and ludicrous one. Lee Marvin in one of his final roles is not given enough screen time, only at the climax of the film is he terrific, really giving his allthe dying gangster (he was probably ill himself then). In the rest of the film he looks on in disbelief and looks like he would rather be elsewhere. There is a lot of &#39;business&#39; going on inside the farm which is not worth going into and much of the film would be seen a French Farce orbeing like &#39;Carry on&#39; or &#39;Benny Hill&#39;- if it was not so violent or just plain nasty in its depiction and abuse of its characters.<br/><br/>The film is violent towards women and negative about humans and sexuality in general. The film collapses into the absurdthe body count mounts upthe crazy inhabitants of the farm, police and nearby innocents are all brutally wiped out and the best remaining parts are between the small boy in his surreal &#39;boat&#39; shaped den and the great Marvin. Ne actor has looked this dislocated from a film since Terence Stamp in &#39;Theorem&#39;. Lee Marvin was a great actor, but this film is not worthy of him and is only worth a look if you want to see Marvin in this piece of weird French surrealism. Canicule has the distinct aroma of tax write off and trip to France for Lee Marvin in one of his last and least films of his career.<br/><br/>Marvin plays American bank robber Jimmy Cobb who is on the run and now in France. The French authorities want this guy bad, they&#39;re even armed to the teeth. The beginning is a homage to Sam Peckinpaugh and The Wild Bunch with a shootout on the Paris streets where a whole lot of people get themselves killed in a botched attempt to take Marvin.<br/><br/>Lee&#39;s on the loose with the loot from a bank job that was obviously committed in America because it&#39;s in dollarsopposed to francs. But he manages to get to the Normandy countryside where he falls into the hands of a family of farmers who&#39;ve got their own ideas about him and his loot and his reputation. And by no means is it unanimous.<br/><br/>Canicule is a French attempt to make an American style gangster film and they&#39;re not bad at it when doing things like Lemmy Caution with American expatriate Eddie Constantine. This one could have used the real Sam Peckinpaugh however directing this mostly French cast of players with Lee Marvin and Tina Louise. The dubbing and editing is hardly first rate. Marvin is in bad health which the camera plainly shows.<br/><br/>As another reviewer stated Gorky Park is a far better film. That and Death Hunt are the last two really great films Lee Marvin made.
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356 weeks ago