Sans Arme, Ni Haine, Ni Violence (2008)

A legendary outlaw unwittingly finds himself face to face with his nemesis in this comedy-drama from France, inspired by a true story. In 1976, Albert Spaggiari (Jean-Paul Rouve) made headlines all across Europe when he led a robbery of the Societe Generale band in Paris that saw him and his partners walk away with $40 million in cash. While Spaggiari was captured by police, he jumped to freedom from a third floor window of the courthouse where he was being tried, and fled to South America, where he successfully avoided extradition to France. Vincent Gourmand (Gilles Lellouche) is a police detective who is obsessed with bringing Spaggiari to justice, and he eventually tracks the thief to a small village in South America, where he lives with his lover Julia (Alice Taglioni). While Gourmand can't arrest Spaggiari, he can find out how the thief pulled off the robbery of a lifetime, and posing as a reporter he asks Spaggiari to sit for an interview. Spaggiari agrees, but instead of the villainous master criminal he expected, Gourmand finds an aging man living in the shadow of a fading legend and struggling to make ends meet on a shrinking fortune that's been ransacked by his partners in crime. Leading man Jean-Paul Rouve also directed Sans Arme, Hi Haine, Ni Violence; it was his first feature-length project behind the camera. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi