COUP DE TORCHONS/BLANK SLATE (1981)

The prolific French writer/director Bertrand Tavernier is, on paper, a paradigm of what you’d want from a director with philosophical, intellectual leanings. Fair-minded, bright, articulate, aware of history (filmic & otherwise), yet so many of his films come off like American Idol on MOTOWN night, the notes are struck, but it just don’t swing. Tavernier deftly replants Jim Thompson’s USA set novel in French colonial Africa, where the personal revenge of an apparently spineless sheriff, community bigotry & civic corruption are ripe for picking. But this pitch black comedy, grinding its way toward ‘the horror, the horror,’ never catches fire. Still, watching the great Philippe Noiret as the worm that turns triumphant, should not be passed up.