That should've been a real French invention. The first part of this movie is a typical criminal story full of cliches and banalities. But the other half is a typical French comedy with little attention to the plausibility of events. Do French women really change their heart as easily as Lelouch shows in this movie?

And therefore, says Jean Yann's character, they can't make gangster flicks anymore. Except that Claude Lelouch can, in his own, slow, deliberate, quirky way. He introduces you to the principals over the course of ten years and punctuates the movie with all the set pieces except for the big robbery: that happens before the start of the picture and sets off the entire course of events, including a double murder, a lesson on the ethnology of Brazil, betrayal, an exclusive girl's school in Switzerland, the funniest prison escape in the history of the movies -- be sure to read the stickers -- and, of course, an equestrian competition. An amazing mix of genres that keeps moving right along.

The director of 'A Man and a Woman' turns his attention toward the two passions closest to a Frenchman's heart (love and larceny) in a film that, in memory of his earlier hit, might have been called 'A Father and a Daughter'. The former is a dedicated family man and discriminating high class thief who loves his wife and daughter as much as his work; the latter is an adoring young woman who can't accept her father's vocation after he risks their security in a plot to avenge the death of his wife. The film marks yet another Old World spin on American B-movie conventions, in this instance more polished (and certainly more fluffy) than its nouvelle-vague prototypes, but with a surplus of Gallic whimsy and fatalism to recommend it. It's not quite a caper, not quite a character study, and not quite a combination of the two; by now, with 27 films to his credit, Claude Lelouch is merely coasting.