I confess this was my first Jean Renoir movie, since I had to watch this for class instead of his more famous works. Don't worry, I'll get to Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game very soon! And it's a surprisingly biting satire of corporate capitalist exploitation, as the antagonist Batala is an obnoxious, womanizing con man who swindles everybody in the publishing company he runs; when he gets his comeuppance later on (hence the title of the film), as brutal of a turn it takes, he has it coming. It was actually deemed an important film for the French Popular Front, a left-wing group at the time, which makes sense given its themes of collective organization (the title character, a writer of "Arizona Jim" Western stories for Batala's paper, starts a collective of workers to criticize their boss) and mockery of the powerful. It is a light satirical comedy with a somewhat shoehorned-in love story and later, as the title suggests, a crime. I thought it was a nicely done, quite funny film, with some really innovative editing for the time (some great scene transitions here), but I admired it more than I loved it. A lot of this is because it feels very undercooked at just 80 minutes, with a very rushed conclusion. I think I will like Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game a lot more, but I'm glad I finally have a taste of the pure French humanism and biting satire of Renoir.
I confess this was my first Jean Renoir movie, since I had to watch this for class instead of his more famous works. Don't worry, I'll get to Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game very soon! And it's a surprisingly biting satire of corporate capitalist exploitation, as the antagonist Batala is an obnoxious, womanizing con man who swindles everybody in the publishing company he runs; when he gets his comeuppance later on (hence the title of the film), as brutal of a turn it takes, he has it coming. It was actually deemed an important film for the French Popular Front, a left-wing group at the time, which makes sense given its themes of collective organization (the title character, a writer of "Arizona Jim" Western stories for Batala's paper, starts a collective of workers to criticize their boss) and mockery of the powerful. It is a light satirical comedy with a somewhat shoehorned-in love story and later, as the title suggests, a crime. I thought it was a nicely done, quite funny film, with some really innovative editing for the time (some great scene transitions here), but I admired it more than I loved it. A lot of this is because it feels very undercooked at just 80 minutes, with a very rushed conclusion. I think I will like Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game a lot more, but I'm glad I finally have a taste of the pure French humanism and biting satire of Renoir.
