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COUP DE TORCHON (Clean Slate) |
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Director Bertrand Tavernier transplants Jim Thompson's hard-boiled novel Pop. 1280 from the American South to French colonial West Africa, circa 1938. Lucien Cordier (Philippe Noiret) is the bumbling police chief of Bourkasa, a dusty outpost in rural Senegal. Despite his position of authority, nobody treats him with respect; not his wife, who openly cheats on him; not the town's citizens, who haven't failed to notice that he's never made an arrest; and certainly not the two pimps who use their monthly payoffs to Lucien as an excuse to humiliate him at every opportunity. Without warning, Lucien embarks on a nonchalant killing spree, murdering everyone who's ever mistreated him, yet as the bodies pile up, he remains above suspicion. This seemingly witless chief of police gradually develops a twisted logic for his actions, animating his crusade with an evangelical purpose.
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