I won't say that's a bad film, its main strength is the atmosphere and the gritty, gloomy, downbeat plot. But I don't think - even one minute - that Jean-Pierre Melville would have done such a film. I name Melville because for many movie goers, French crime films lovers, Alain Corneau was shown as the "new Melville". Well, I guess no director on earth can imitate the Stetson hat man from Jenner street studios in Paris. Martin Scorcese's cinema - TAXI DRIVER, MEAN STREETS - could be closer to Alain Corneau's cinema, especially this one, where Anconina shines, as he did several years earlier for TCHAO PANTIN.