The Vintagent Classics: L'Agression

SUMMARY

“Act of Aggression,” vie French a melodrama that opened yesterday at two theaters, is so bad that it makes a film as vicious as “Death Wish” look good.

Like the Charles Bronson character in “Death Wish,” Jean‐Louis Trintignant, the hero of “Act Of Aggression,” is a mild‐mannered, middle class businessman who is transformed into a killer ape after his wife and daughter have been trutalized by hoodlums. But where “Death Wish” exalted revenge, the French movie simply trivializes it with a plot that twists less easily than a dried noodle. Gerard Pires, the director, makes things even worse by employing the kind of flashy cutting and camerawork you might expect in a television commercial that’s amok.

Mr. Trintignant does a lot of driving of automobiles and looks quite understandably driven. Catherine Deneuve, who plays his sister‐in‐law, looks magnificent. She is not only one of the world’s great beauties. She now possesses such substance and ease as an actress that she almost persuades us the movie couldn’t possibly be as terrible as it is.

ACT OF AGGRESION (L’ Agression), directed by Gerard Pires; sceenplay (French with English subtitles) by JeanPatric Manchette and Mr. Pires, based on the novel “The Shrewsdale Exit,” by John Buell; produced by Alain Poire and Pierre Braunberger; director of photography, Silvano Ippoliti; music, Robert Chariebois; a co‐production of S.N.E. Gaumont, Les Films du Jeudi, Les Films de la Seine (Paris) and Primez Italians (Rome), distributed by Joseph Green Picture. Running time: 94 minutes. At the Trans‐Lux 85th Street, at Madison Avenue, and the Eighth Street Playhouse, west of Fifth This film has not been rated. – The New York Times, Dec 4th, 1975

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