Seeing Red: 3 French Vigilante Thrillers

A Paris flea market vendor (Gérard Lanvin) is transformed into a vigilante after his fiancée is murdered by three vicious thugs on a commuter train in Jean-Claude Missiaen's Shot Pattern (Tir Groupé, 1982). As the revenge-minded young man tracks the killers, a veteran police inspector leads a parallel investigation. This lean, intelligently-crafted thriller packs an emotional punch, largely due to Lanvin's superlative performance, for which he received a César Award nomination for Best Actor.

American crime writer David Goodis' novels have been adapted into numerous films, including Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, Delmer Daves' Dark Passage and Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall. For Street of the Damned (Rue Barbare, 1984), Gilles Béhat transposes Goodis' Street of the Lost from 1950s Philadelphia to a desolate, almost post-apocalyptic Paris suburb. There, no one dares challenge crime boss Hagen, who rules his turf with an iron fist. That includes his former friend Chet (Bernard Giraudeau), who vows to keep to himself in order to protect his loved ones. But Hagen keeps pushing his buttons...and Chet can only stand for so much before he explodes. Resembling a dark, offbeat comic book, Street of the Damned evokes films like Streets of Fire and Mad Max.

Three teenage Parisian punks are duped by a crime syndicate into committing a bank robbery that will distract the authorities while the seasoned crooks hijack an armored truck across town in Alain Bonnot's Black List (Liste Noire, 1984). Disaster ensues and two of the youngsters are killed, including the estranged daughter of widowed auto repair shop owner Jeanne Dufour (Annie Girardot). A grieving Jeanne ignores her own fear, as well as the law, and sets out to eliminate all of those responsible for her daughter's death. Groundbreaking in its portrayal of a female vigilante, the film is stylish and violent and features a powerhouse performance from Girardot as a woman who has passed the breaking point.