I comme Icare aka I as in Icarus (1979)

One might not think it from reading the reviews of this blog but one of my absolute movie genres is the conspiracy ones, especially from the glory days of the seventies when masterpieces like Three days for the condor and The Parallax View appeared on the scene. There has been a few later ones (like the fun mockumentary The Conspiracy) but nothing that came close to the awesomeness of back then. So it was truly a treat to finally have a chance to watch the legendary I... comme Icare, a French take on the Kennedy assassination and I'm happy to say that this is one of the best conspiracythrillers I have seen to this date.

The movie starts with a gunman preparing to kill the president of an unnamed country from the roof of a high rise tower but when the moment comes he does not have the guts to pull through, though someone else does and the president is murdered. As the failed assassin makes his way out of the building he is shot in the face and killed and when the police arrive the whole thing looks like a suicide. An official report is produced and the conclusion is that the gunman was alone, though one of the members of the inquiry comes to the conclusion that he cannot agree with the verdict. A new inquiry starts and the evidence starts to point to something entirely different. And the name of the Lone gunman? Karl Eric Daslow. Rearrange those letters a bit.

Wow. This is one hell of a thriller. The best thing about I... comme Icare is the fact that it is cold and clinical in its methods and ways to take us into the web of the conspiracy. There are no random events, no coincidental happenings that help the protagonists to uncover the truth by chance. Just methodical policework which makes everything seems so much more than just a movie, it brings you into the story and delivers what this kind of movie needs to be successful. Realism. No matter what your opinion is on the Lone gunman theory of the Kennedy assassination, this movie takes that and makes a damn fine (and plausible) movie out of it. Yves Montand is superbly dry as State attorney Henri Volney and sometimes it feels more like he is hosting a documentary instead of acting the role of someone digging up the dirt. We even get legendary porn starlet and Jean Rollin actress Brigitte Lahaie in a small role as one of the witnesses of the real shooter! 

I... comme Icare is truly one hell of an exciting thrillers with several nailbiting sequences of stomachchurning suspense and an excellent methodical pace that make the two hours running time flash by in an instant. As of this writing the movie is to my knowledge not available on an englishfriendly dvd or blu ray (there are fansubs out there) and I truly hope that it will be in the future, this is a movie that needs to be seen.