Légitime violence

The Police are inefficient so let's take the law in our own hands.Serge Leroy 's purpose was to denounce this attitude which became particularly threatening in the wake of the abolishment of death penalty by François Mitterrand in 1981 in France.

Unfortunately a long-winded complicated plot will not convince anybody.Besides,on many levels,Leroy offends people even if he does not mean to do it:

-The Police are all incompetent listless cowards.

-Homosexuals might resent him for making a gay nightclub a den of criminals,even if the owner (Thierry Lhermitte)is more stupid than really nasty.

-Women are also demeaned with a two bit bubble-head squalling chanteuse,Lhermitte's sister.

Actually the only nice person on the screen is Claude Brasseur's father,a sensible sensitive man who tells his son :"we've never brought you up that way!" Christophe Lambert appears in a small part.

André Cayatte had already shown how the populace could rule and take the law in its own hands in "le glaive et la balance" (1963) .Although dismissed at the time,he did a much better job than Leroy.