Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

knucklebreather "Going Places" is the English title of a 1974 French film with two of the famous actors of the era, Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere, as freewheeling hoodlums of highly questionable morality. The episodic movie follows their adventures as they try to, among other things, live without working and give pleasure to frigid to women. The latter endeavor includes seducing a soldier's bride on a train, literally chasing a woman through the streets, picking up a woman randomly as she leaves prison, and what becomes their ultimate challenge, giving pleasure to Marie-Ange, who is all too willing to have sex but has never had an orgasm.No one would ever accuse this movie of being politically correct. It is sexist, the heroes are brutish criminals, but the point isn't really that they're doing anything noble or should be forgiven for their sins. It is more of a meditation on self destruction, although I think the fun of this movie is just the tragic black comedy of their hopeless adventures, not analyzing it for some deeper meaning.I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot, well the main theme that kept being repeated, and the credit music was a perfect coda. This is a great French film from the 70s, check it out.

Jay Raskin I saw this film when it first played in 1974 and hated it. The lead characters were stupid and violent, and I thought it was mean spirited and not funny at all.Seeing it some 38 years later, I have a much more mixed opinion about it. I can now see many things in the film I didn't understand before.First, it is clear that Blier is heavily influenced by Godard and the Nouvelle Vague. Notice that the violence is generally off-screen and the story generally jumps over these scenes. For example the wounding of Pierrot is not shown, just as the shooting of the cop is not shown in "Breathless." The brutal homosexual rape scene is also off-screen with just a scream to indicate it. Likewise, as in "Breathless," there are long seemingly improvised, almost existentialist, talking scenes where the action comes completely to a stop.Second, the violence and psychotic behavior of the leads is mainly in the first half of the film. In the second half, they are mostly charming and often sweet. For example, Jean-Claude offers all the money he has just stolen to a complete stranger, Jeanne Pirolle (Jeanne Moreau), a 40 year old destitute woman just released from prison after 10 years. Jean Claude does not ask anything in return. He seems to just want to help her. At another point, after Jean-Claude and Pierrot are connected with a murder, they try to get rid of Marie-Ange, so that she will not be connected. It is clear that these hoodlums who have mistreated Marie-Ange very badly have learned to care about her and even want to protect her.While there are still any number of objectionable things that the lead characters do, there are really only two scenes, where they do things that are unforgivably mean-spirited. First, Jean Claude threatens the children of a doctor who is helping Pierrot. This seems entirely unnecessary and vicious. Second, Jean Claude shoots Marie-Ange in the knee when she starts to get angry during a robbery. The previous mistreatment of Marie-Ange, giving her as a present to a friend and forcing her to have sex together do not seem so bad, because she herself doesn't object and seems use to sexual mistreatment. It is at the moment that Marie-Ange has started to think and express herself and her feelings of anger that Jean Claude shoots her and that is why this incident seems so unpardonable.It is put down as a goof in the film that later we see Marie-Ange and the wound from the gunshot has disappeared. I am not sure if it is a goof. Rather, the shooting itself and not the disappearance of the effects seems to be the mistake. Since they didn't bother to show the effects of the gunshot later on, I assume the shooting was a quickly improvised part of the film that was done before the later part of the plot was written. It is almost as if the shooting is from a first draft of the movie and only mistakenly found its way into the finished film. In any case, the shooting is the most repulsive part of the film and weakens it considerably.People have described this as a "road movie." I think it more of a coming of age movie, where the three main characters are learning about sex. They don't come from virginity to sex as in most coming of age movies, but they come from seeing sex as something brutal and frightening to something tender and liberating.The film includes three great performances by three great French film actresses, Miou-Miou, Isabel Huppert and Jeanne Moreau. This is probably the best reason to see the film. It is also a must for Gerald Depardieu and Bertrand Blier fans.

SanSanSan I'd give it a ten for atmosphere and performances, but the misogyny of the characters (and, by implication, that of the author, who both wrote the story and filmed it) is too sickening, reaching truly horrifying proportions in the end chosen for Jeanne Moreau's character. Yep, we women should ALL commit suicide at forty, or whenever we stop being able to breed. Yep, there's nothing wrong with us, or the world at large, that a good shag won't cure. I thought growing up female in the eighties/nineties was tough; now I can only be thankful I wasn't around before then. Still, I'd recommend it to intelligent people; unfortunately, this is exactly the sort of movie that attracts most strongly the knuckle-dragging stupid. There's naked breasts (and more) in it, after all!

John Hutchinson- (playwrite2000) I loved Dewaere in Series Noir. His talent is trivialized in "The Waltzers" aka "Going Places". Okay, it's a couple of guys flaunting convention in the most absurd and irredeemable ways; many folks find such behavior amusing. This was a boring, pointless exercise designed to shock. I find the smirk on Blier's face, the face behind the camera, annoying. Series Noir was a valid expression of personal liberty and licentious behavior. From the first moment when we see Patric Dewaere prancing in the abandoned lot we get an idea of the bewilderingly beautiful anti-hero we'll be spending time with for the next couple of hours. When we see him chasing the hapless middle aged female with his buddy Depardieu in "Going Places" we have fair warning that two hours spent with these chaps will be soul-draining. I have trouble eking even a "3" for this annoying distraction.