The Mob (1975).

The Stage.

Seasoned drug smuggler and thief François “Chico” Tremblay is tired of his modest lifestyle and thinks he should be bigger in the Montreal crime scene than he is. Given the opportunity to earn $50,000 for killing a prominent New York City gangster, he leaps at the opportunity, ignoring the warnings of Montreal’s leading mob boss, who has forbidden local criminals from taking the assignment. Upon his return, Chico discovers he is being pursued from all sides, prompting an unlikely response: he calls a local talk radio show and starts revealing the mafia’s most carefully guarded secrets. As his revelations get more shocking, so do the tactics of his adversaries, culminating in a devastating gut punch of a finale.

The Review.

I’ve seen a lot of crime/mob films in my day, but to this point I don’t think I’d ever seen one from Canada. This film was put on Blu-ray by Canadian International Pictures with a partnership with Vinegar Syndrome, so when it was released I jumped at the chance to see it.

The film is an interesting Canadian time capsule, a past where bell bottoms and plaid suits ruled the streets and grooming, well…who needed it? The story allows us to tail Chico, a cocksure moron with a hair trigger, and his friend Gaby, a honey entrepreneur by day, relaxed mobster by night. In terms of the films tone, it’s not flashy, not showy. It feels very down to Earth, very matter of fact with the way things happen. At one point, a major character dies and it’s just kind of shrugged off by the filmmakers. Without the big production of character deaths, it actually gave the film an unsettling feel, as if we were watching a documentary instead of something groomed for the screen.

About halfway through, once we get to the radio station aspect of the picture, things slow down a bit, which was unfortunate. The cops and the radio host get a lot more screen time and the momentum is a bit lost. Chico, as despicable as he is, is a much more interesting character. It’s fun watching as the walls slowly close in on him while he’s hiding in a low cost motel on the outskirts of Quebec, especially because you’ll probably want him to bite it. Unfortunately the film doesn’t quite stick the landing and kind of fizzles out, a far cry from the title of the chapter stop, ‘Chico’s Last Stand’. I was expecting some kind of big shoot out, but didn’t get that.

The lead actor is played by Marc Legault, and I thought he was pretty good. He’s apparently still acting today with 56 credits, so if you catch this and want more of him, there’s plenty out there in both French film and television. The film was directed by Jacque Godbout, whose work I’m also unfamiliar with. I’ve seen this referred to as Montreal’s answer to The Godfather and I wholeheartedly disagree with that kind of comparison. Aside from dealing with organized crime, there’s no similarities with that film or frankly many others from the 70’s, and feels more like a precursor to Carlito’s Way with a Mean Streets look and tone.

Let’s talk about the Canadian International Pictures disc, which features a