L'affaire

An esteemed surgeon, Charles Bernard, and his family are victims of a violent home invasion. When his young child is held for ransom, Charles must decide whether to comply or fight back.

Good dope is becoming rare in the North of Paris. Drugstores are being raided by junkies and gangs are nervous, fighting each others: the 'Viets', the 'Blackies', the 'Arabs', the neo-nazis 'Justiciers' and some mean gays. Vincent (Daniel Auteuil) is the good cop coming from Marseilles where he was a gangster. He's a soft method guy but also kicks assses hard and throw lethal dialog lines when needed. With the precious help of 'l'Arbalète'* (Marisa Berenson**), a tox' prostitute ex-member of Vincent's former gang, he will try to put order in that mess. There's also a violent and racist cop (Marcel Bozzuffi), Algeria veteran with hard methods, whose role could be more than to protect and to serve.

Patterning himself after the American gangster John Dillinger, the criminal (Robert Hossein) is tracked by the inspector (Charles Aznavour), a former childhood friend. Plenty of gunplay and psychology is used to trap the killer. His only tender moments are spent with his girlfriend Stella (Virna Lisi). Dillinger is cornered by the police and kills several innocent victims in a crowd during the shootout. The mob decides to take things into their own hands as they approach the doomed man with a noose when he runs out of bullets.

Middle-aged lust: a man, in his thirteenth and therefore omen-filled marriage year, cheats on his wife.

A pleasingly pump female gets behind the wheel of a car during a party game and has an accident. Now temporarily confined to a wheelchair, the girl is holed up in her apartment. Watching through binoculars, she sees a man in a Mardi Gras clownsuit fight with another man and flee. Somehow the clown ends up in the girl's apartment where the two make love. Later, he returns to her after the man he had fought with shoots him. Though his clownsuit is stained with blood, she allows him in once again and hopes that love has long last arrived.