Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-sally.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!ut-sally!kelvin From: kelvin@ut-sally.UUCP (Kelvin Thompson) Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: _My_New_Partner_ (spoiler) Message-ID: <2157@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 22:41:31 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-sally.2157 Posted: Thu Jun 20 22:41:31 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 00:21:29 EDT Distribution: net Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 65 _My_New_Partner_ by Kelvin Thompson _My_New_Partner_ is a bad movie, although it is really inappropriate to call it a movie at all. Rather, it is a carefully-contrived piece of propoganda designed to undermine the confidence of the West in its economies and governments. On its surface, the "movie" concerns the uncomfortable relationship between two Parisian street cops, one a veteran and one a rookie. The veteran, Phillipe Noiret (_Dear_Inspector_) has been on the take for years. He regularly accepts free meals from restaraunts, free clothes from tailors, free tumbles from prostitutes, and bribes from just about everybody. In the opening scenes Noiret's longtime partner is caught performing similar unsavory deeds and put behind bars. Noiret is then partnered with a rookie, Thierry Lhermitte (_Until_September_), who believes in playing strictly by the book. Given this outline, the movie has the potential to be a powerful drama about the terrible waste -- in both economic and human terms -- caused by greed and corruption. The movie might have been something to stand beside Lumet's _Prince_of_the_City_, but instead the French Government has turned _Partner_ into a *comedy.* As ridiculous as it may seem, the filmmakers attempt to make Noiret's arbitrary enforcement of the law *humorous,* and they try to portray Lhermitte's character as a naive, irritating prude. When Noiret ignores a pickpocket, frees a pusher for a bribe, or gets his Chief hooked on coke, the viewer is supposed to smile at his street-wisdom. As he gradually corrupts his partner -- first by implicating the rookie in a prisoner-beating, then by stealing all his money so he is forced to accept graft -- the audience is supposed to laugh at his cleverness. When Lhermitte, fully corrupted, proposes a daring (and illegal) scam, the audience is supposed to cheer at his conversion. This type of manipulation may wash with the French, but other audiences will recognize the insidious messages planted by _Partner_ as part of a larger trend, a trend which corresponds roughly with the ascension to power of Mitterand's "Socialist" government in France. Certainly American audiences will realize that all of the recent films coming out of France -- from _Jupiter's_Thigh_ to _Coup_de_Torchon_ to _Diva_ -- portray the police as ineffectual boobies and trivialize their position in society. _Partner_ is surely the peak (so far) of this trend. The police are less responsible in their conduct, less effective in their crime-fighting, and more easily overcome than ever. In _Partner_ the overall message comes through all too clearly: the police can no longer function, they are little better than the criminals they claim to fight, the time for revoultion is now, overthrow the corrupt, bloodsucking order for a better one. Fortunately, Mitterand and his cronies have forgotten one thing while churning out their subliminal broadcast -- that the people of France and Europe love their liberty, and will die to keep it. Paris, or even France, may fall for a time, but freedom lovers the world over will gladly take up arms to see that it is once again restored to its previous glory. Liberty *will* live again. With luck, however, careful viewers of movies like _Partner_ may come to fully appreciate the foul fruit that is ripening in the heart of Europe and avert the explosion peacefully, before a drop of blood need be shed.