CLASSE TOUS RISQUES (RECOMMENDED)

Male bonding in cinema –particularly in crime drama-- is nothing new. There is an endless list of buddy films where gun-toting fellas forge lifelong connections in a hail of bullets. But let’s face it, gay cowboy movies aside; emotional intimacy between men rarely makes it to the screen.

Claude Sautet’s 1960 crime noir is familiar enough; the storyline concerns an aging gangster on the run. What’s surprising is the film’s uncanny ability to humanize its tragic characters. Woven into the Classe tous Risques’s genre conventions are the first stirrings of the French new wave. Instead of romanticized violence, a pervasive sense of human waste and fatalism clings to the edges of the story, reminding us of the high personal costs of living in the criminal world.

Sad-eyed Abel Davos (Lino Ventura) is a thug on the lam. Hiding from the death sentence that awaits him in France, he has spent the last ten years living in Italy with his wife and two little boys. When resources dry up, he and his best friend stage a desperate quick grab robbery. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned and Davos is forced to seek former colleagues in Paris to help him.

Though underworld code demands they send one of their own, the mob dispatches Erik Stark (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a young inexperienced driver to escort them home. On the road back, the two gangsters learn to trust one another, forming a friendship that reestablishes the idea of honor among thieves. Davos, struggling to escape his past, ends up drawn back into the criminal life because of his newfound loyalty to Eric. Needless to say, it's a bad bet since betrayal lurks in every corner of the underworld.

One of the joys of discovering a forgotten gem like Classe tous Risques is to see how the influences of two very different film movements (noir and new wave) collide to create something special. Infusing the picture with a palpable sense of melancholy and angst, director Sautet turns a criminal game of cat-and-mouse into an emotionally affecting tale about male relationships.

As Davos and Stark grow to depend on one another, they eschew macho bluster for simple honesty. These are not men who talk at length about their feelings but rather address their bond through posture, intonation and averted glances. They are men at opposite ends of their lives struggling with issues of trust, betrayal and self-loathing. It’s a delicate dance and Sautet does a masterful job of making clear what is at stake.

Classe also boasts marvelously understated visuals and a slick sense of storytelling. The scenery changes rapidly and the film’s forward momentum is irresistible. Sautet knows how to wind things to the breaking point, punctuating the tension with frantic outbursts of violence. The film’s opening half hour is a headlong rush of action that carries you from a sudden daylight robbery in Milan to a high speed chase through police roadblocks finally arriving at a devastating nighttime shoot out on a secluded beach in Nice.

If you’re a fan of Rififi or Le Deuxième Souffle, see Classe tous Risques while you can. With its seedy view of loyalty, grim undercurrent of existential dread and unexpected sensitivity to male bonding, Suatet’s film may very well have been the death knell of noir machismo. After all, it takes a real tough guy to admit his true feelings.