L'Homme Du Train Details

Male bonding has been a recurring theme throughout director Patrice Leconte's career, but he's never handled the subject with such wit, sensitivity and insight as in this superb two-hander. The key to its success is the easy rapport between Jean Rochefort's retired teacher and Johnny Hallyday's taciturn thief, as they contemplate heart surgery and a bank robbery, respectively. A whiff of chauvinism pervades the subplots, but mostly the atmosphere is one of late-life regret tinged with a wistful envy for another, seemingly more satisfying or exciting lifestyle. In his seventh collaboration with Leconte, Rochefort is typically mischievous, but the revelation is Hallyday — an ageing pop icon dubbed the “French Elvis” — who lowers his guard of Gallic cool to reveal genuine vulnerability.