Detective

Returning to the gangster territory that shaped his earliest films, director Jean-Luc Godard, in DETECTIVE, uses a standard plot device--the solving of a murder--to springboard his thoughts and beliefs on film and video, pornography, urban living in France, language, love, and boxing. The plot, what little there is of it, takes place entirely in the Hotel Concorde at St. Lazare in France and centers around the attempt of Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur--an unhappily married couple--to recover a debt owed them by boxing manager Johnny Hallyday, who also owes money to mafioso Alain Cuny. Hallyday, however, is too broke to pay either. In fact, he is too broke to pay...