good back-story, and good acting

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

During World War II, Pierre Broussard was responsible for the execution by firing squad of seven Jewish prisoners. Now, in 1992, he's a tired old man with a heart condition, still trying to escape his past. The result, under Norman Jewison's surprisingly uncertain direction, is a series of routine set pieces. Broussard is tracked. He shoots the assailant. He's followed again. Another shooting. His only hope is that the ultra-right wing friends of his wartime days will provide sanctuary and perhaps even a passport to South America. That they are almost all Catholic clergy gives the film an odd and disturbing bias. Michael Caine is, as always, terrific. He somehow manages to give Broussard depth and insight. But as for the movie itself, the real mystery is why was it made?

The cast list reads like a roll call of many of the great and good among British thespians, all getting a little long in the tooth, it has to be said, but nevertheless doing the business manfully as they always did. So there's Michael Caine, Frank Finlay, Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling and Tilda Swinton, but the mystery isn't who among the French establishment is protecting a number of ageing Vichy murderers, but what this august group is doing in a film which is sadly little more than a TV film with a bigger budget. Two other big names are involved: Ronald Harwood wrote the screenplay from the novel by Brian Moore, and Norman Jewison directed and producedI suspect this should have remained as a novel. For one thing although the whole shooting match was filmed in France – Nice, Marseill, Avignon, Paris – and the production values are high enough to ensure the French cops look like French cops, it is all rather strange when they talk in impeccably British accents, from the wine maker played by Frank Finlay to Caine's Vichy baddie on the run and Alan Bates French government minister. Sadly, this viewer couldn't get beyond the Britishness of if all which rather made suspending disbelief impossible. I suspect the plot about the the guilty ones in the establishment protecting themselves bumping off those who could identify them and inventing a Jewish group which is apparently out for vengeance to cover their tracks worked a lot, lot better on paper in the novel. An intricate part of the plot is the nasty RC church giving sanctuary to those Vichy killers on the run – well, Caine at least, but the implication is that they did it for many more, and I believe there is a great deal of hard evidence that it did, indeed, happen like that. This is by no means a bad film, and the average of 6/10 given here by IMDb reflects that. It is just that it is all rather misconceived. No masterpiece, then, but worth catching if you happen to see it billed on late-night TV.

Pierre Brossard is a man hiding an ugly past - he collaborated with the Vichy Regime in Nazi occupied France during WWII. This led him to being responsible for the execution on 7 Jews. Now, after years of hiding and living a quiet pious life, his past has caught up with him.One thing that can strike an audience about this film is its relatively quiet nature. Things happen, but they don't always happen fast. There isn't any real "action" and "thrills." However, the movie nonetheless remains engaging, though it is not a conventional revenge thriller movie. It is more about the people involved than the things that they do or did in the past. There are only hints at Brossard's past and not whole flashback sequences showing war crimes. Even as characters travel throughout the film their travel times are even spared quick montages or vast establishing shots. This might make the film seem slow and uneventful, yet there are a few suspense scenes that are, well, just good suspense scenes. Slow, yes, but tense.Also the movie makes an indictment about the violence. Does violence cure violence? Is fighting fire with fire always the right thing to do? It solves somethings, but does it solve everything? The film certainly ends on a hum that leaves the viewer thinking about the subtleties that it drops throughout. --- 8/10Rated R despite minimal violence. Almost any PG-13 action film is significantly more violent.

I just saw this movie and I don't agree with mostly of the comments I have seen here. Is a very good thriller, with good performance of the cast and fine direction and photography. The sound is really superb and that's why the movie got the prizes. Further comments are out of order. I'll see it again to watch the goof and enjoy the acting. I was wondering if the story is real, many of the collaborators not only in France, but in the occupied countries for sure lived in some way the same experiences more or less. Ten points for the sound, and the photography. For the movie as a good thriller, I will say 7 points.And that's all.