Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie Review

Cool times deux.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 2, 2015

Charles Zigman, whose fascinating if fairly sporadic commentary is appended to this new Cohen Film Collection release of José Giovanni’s 1973 Two Men in Town, is the author of a two volume tome entitled Jean Gabin: World’s Coolest Movie Star. Some film fans may deign to argue with that assessment, but it would be pretty hard to find another actor of Gabin’s stature who managed to maintain that status for the longevity that Gabin enjoyed (a longevity perhaps evidenced by the fact that Zigman’s history of the performer roams over two volumes). The IMDb lists nearly 100 acting credits by Gabin, spanning an incredible near fifty year epoch from 1928 to 1976. Many of Gabin’s relatively early films like Pepe le Moko, La Grande Illusion and La Bête Humaine are considered all time classics, and the fact that Gabin was still churning out films in the late seventies might lead the casual observer to come to the conclusion that Gabin simply alighted a cinematic pedestal early in his life and then calmly stayed there for the duration. As in most cursory glances, that doesn’t give a full and accurate picture (no pun intended), and like most people in any walk of life, Gabin rode a roller coaster of sorts during his long and ultimately illustrious career, a roller coaster that saw him repeatedly fired or least shunted off to the sidelines due to his so-called artistic temperament. Gabin’s United States film career never really took off (again, reportedly at least partially due to how difficult he could be to work with), and there were long fallow periods for him even in his native France. By the seventies, however, Gabin was seen as a sort of (perhaps slightly curmudgeonly or cantankerous) paterfamilias type, and he had had the good sense to establish strong working relationships with a number of younger French film industry types, including those who worked both in front of and behind the camera. One of Gabin’s regular collaborators was Alain Delon, an actor whose own “cool quotient” made him comparable (in the world of Charles Zigman again) to America’s James Dean. Delon and Gabin had already made The Sicilian Clan and Mélodie en sous-sol prior to Two Men in Town, and their screen pairings had resonated very well with both critics and (perhaps more importantly) the ticket buying public. Delon became a so-called “multi-hyphenate” throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, moving into a producing role in addition to his starring duties, and he served as producer for Two Men in Town as well as starring as ex-con Gino Strabliggi. While Two Men in Town might seem on its face to be Gino’s story, it really derives most of its emotional resonance from Gabin’s role, that of elderly social worker Germain Cazeneuve, a wisened old man who has come to believe that France’s judicial system is perhaps irretrievably broken.

Cazeneuve’s narration in fact informs at least part of Two Men in Town, as the well meaning man relays his feeling about the justice system in France. The film also allows the character to indulge in a bit of proselytizing in an early scene set in a prison where Cazeneuve talks about the fact that some convicts are in fact able to be rehabilitated, and should therefore not be consigned to a life in stir. Cazeneuve is convinced that Gino himself is one of that sort, a guy who may have made a mistake (maybe more than one, actually) in his “past life”, but who has now seen the light and would be a safe bet to release out into the free world again. That release is what sets Two Men in Town’s fairly minimal plot mechanics into motion.

It turns out that Gino does in fact want to go straight, and he makes valiant efforts in that regard once he is released, with a little help from both Cazeneuve and Gino’s supportive wife Sophie (Ilaria Occhini). Gino’s former (literal) partners in crime aren’t so easily convinced, however, and a coterie of them begins tailing Gino, hoping to lure him back to the “dark side” (one of these villains is a young Gérard Depardieu). An unexpected tragedy which seems to come out of nowhere ends up sending Gino into a bit of a tailspin, though he still seems to be eschewing his former life of crime.

After the tragedy, Gino attempts to begin a new life, which includes a new job and even a new woman (Mimsy Farmer), but while his former “associates” are still in the mix, it’s actually a nefarious cop named Goitreau (Michel Bouquet) who begins really wreaking havoc in Gino’s already precarious existence. While perhaps not quite at the obsessive level of Javert in Les Misérables, Goitreau is convinced that Gino is up to no good, or at least soon will be, and that assumption colors the rest of the film, leading to a distressingly tragic conclusion.

While perhaps overly broad at times, Two Men in Town makes a salient argument that the point of rehabilitation is to—well, rehabilitate. As Zigman mentions in his commentary, the French judicial system seems almost willfully at odds with that approach at times, and until rather shockingly recently, still relied on the deterrent aspects of the guillotine (yes, the guillotine) to achieve a sense of order. Delon is surprisingly vulnerable in this film, at least sporadically removed from the stoic, emotionally tamped down guy he tended to play during the apex of his matinee idol years. Gabin is of course properly monolithic as an older man who’s seen it all and is properly disillusioned about the vagaries of the justice system and those it rightly or wrongly ensnares.

Note: For a perhaps even more positive take on the film, as well as a description of the French release's supplementary material, please see Svet Atanasov's Two Men in Town Blu-ray review.

Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Two Men in Town is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. This release was sourced from the same 4K restoration done by Pathé which was released in France earlier this year, and reviewed by my colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov. As Svet points out in his review, this is a wonderfully organic looking presentation, with a very healthy looking palette (which in my opinion is perhaps slightly skewed toward blue some of the time). Elements are in pristine condition, and the rather heavy grain field resolves very naturally while also giving the film an almost palpably textured appearance.

Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Two Men in Town features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original French, which offers excellent support for the film's dialogue and especially for the lovely string drenched score by Philippe Sarde. Sarde's music provides most of the sonic interest in the film, though everything is rendered cleanly and clearly, with excellent fidelity and no damage of any kind to warrant concern.

Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Length Audio Commentary by Author/Film Historian Charles Zigman. While there are some relatively long quiet spots here and there, when Zigman does deign to speak, he's very informative, getting into the careers of both Delon and Gabin, as well as addressing some of the elements of French jurisprudence which underlie some of the film's plot.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:47)


• 2015 Re-release Trailer (1080p; 1:54)

Two Men in Town Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Two Men in Town manages to combine elements of a traditional crime thriller with more nuanced sociopolitical arguments, and it's a rather interesting amalgamation as a result. Buoyed by two titanic performances from Delon and Gabin, and colorfully staged by Giovanni, the film rather unexpectedly works up toward a cathartic emotional denouement. Highly recommended.