TRUFFAUT - Shoot The Piano Player

Here we have an interesting trifle. I mean that in the sense not of something insignificant, but of something light and tasty, not lacking substance but not possessing a great deal of it, either.

The most striking thing about this movie, besides its spectacular title, is that it isn't what it ought to be. After all, there's a murder, a knife fight, a car chase, a character fleeing from his past and changing his name, a shootout, a flashback, two classic henchmen, an opening scene with a character fleeing for his life down the darkened streets of Paris, and themes of brotherly loyalty tested and ambition cast aside.

And yet, this isn't a noir picture. It's not easily classified, but noir it ain't. The opening flight sets the mood, but mainly because the pursued character runs smack into a light pole and winds up listening to a stranger tell him about learning to love his wife. This bit isn't played for laughs, but it does deflate the serious/dramatic tone the movie might have been about to set. Which is a wise decision, because the movie becomes a story about love and shyness, as much as anything else, and 90 minutes of serious reflection on why a guy is too shy to ask a girl out would be unbearable.

So it's hard to classify, but it's still a Truffaut picture (you can tell because the women have nice legs.) The main character, Charlie Koller (nee Edouard Saroyan), is too timid to even touch a woman he likes, though confusingly, he has a warm and occasionally steamy relationship with the prostitute that watches his kid brother during the day. The running narrative in his head, which takes over to tell the story of his previous life, and the tragic circumstances under which he left it, establishes that he's a neurotic genius unable to ask for what he wants, particularly when he wants something from a woman.

This all leaves him rather unprepared for what happens when his brother bursts into the club where he makes a modest living as a honky-tonk piano player and, after making a scene, asks for his help in protecting him from "them", the 2 gangster pursuers from the opening scene. Charlie doesn't want to help, but does anyway, which marks him and a smitten waitress for abduction later on. Again, we have a pretty noirish setup, but the situation is defused when the gangsters seem unable to foresee the obvious: they allow Lena, the waitress, to sit in the front seat, where she steps on the gas. The car speeds, the traffic cops stop it, and Lena and Charlie simply walk away from their kidnapping. In another movie, this might seem like quick thinking on Lena's part; here, it seems like another example of the idiot gangsters being idiots.

But it's still very entertaining, and this perhaps more than anything else is what identifies Shoot The Piano Player as first-class Truffaut.