This is a film written by Pierre Lesou, who eleven years earlier adapted Melville's LE DOULOS (1962, see my review). WITHOUT WARNING has been used as a film title many times, starting in 1924 with a silent film. But this one is not connected with any of the others. It is French and its original title is SANS SOMMATION, which means when translated either WITHOUT WARNING, if understood in the sense of ordinary French, or WITHOUT APPEAL as a legal expression in French. (I believe the producers intended the latter sense.) Like so many French thrillers, the corruption of the French Establishment is very much a factor in the story, though here it is only in the background and we do not see it directly. The plot is extraordinarily complex, and many things turn out to be entirely different than what we first thought they were, as the story keeps evolving and more and more things are revealed. The supposed 'bad guys' who are the subject of a desperate police investigation are really a group of ex-soldiers who served together in Indochina and who 'know too much'. The police are told explicitly that the leader of the gang, a Major Capra, must not be captured but must instead be killed, lest he talk and reveal the shocking official corruption. Into this situation a surprising coincidence occurs, which entirely alters the events. Capra had previously, in Indochina, had a subordinate named Lieutenant Kieffer (the name is wrongly given as Lieutenant Revere in the IMDb plot summary), but he has not seen him in several years and he had heard that Kieffer was in Venezuela. (The action of this film takes place entirely in France.) One day, a man closely resembling Kieffer is spotted. Can it be Kieffer? In fact, his name is Raoul Maury and he is a disgraced police inspector. This character is played very well by Maurice Ronet, who takes impassivity of facial expression to new heights. But that is OK, because he has to. He agrees with the police to impersonate Kieffer, and be taken into Capra's gang. Capra is played by Mario Adorf, and he is a rough customer indeed. It is a pleasant surprise to find the young Bruno Cremer in this film. He plays Sergeant Donetti, who is also from the same group of soldiers and is now Capra's right arm. Cremer to my mind is forever associated with the genial Inspector Maigret, from the immensely long series of Maigret films which he made later in life, based on what seems to have been all of Simenon's Maigret novels, since the season ran to 14 seasons. Those films are mostly excellent. One of them in Season One, starring Cremer, was directed by the same Bruno Gantillon who directed this film. I wonder what they thought of their reunion after an interval of approximately 27 years. Raoul is given the assignment to assassinate Major Capra, who strongly suspects him or being an impostor. There are many hair-raising confrontations between them. But Raoul cannot bring himself to kill Capra. Capra's main desire is to kill his former Colonel, who had made a deal with the corrupt government officials and turned traitor against Capra and the rest of the soldiers to have them all eliminated as a threat to the Establishment. Raoul does not stop him doing this. Capra comes to realize that Raoul really is an impostor and a police detective trying to get his old job back by carrying out this mission. But by this time, they have become uneasy friends and so they accept one another for what they are, despite constantly pointing guns at each other and realizing they do not have the heart to fire. What will happen? Will they both live? Will one of them survive? Will the Establishment be exposed? These things cannot be revealed in a review.
