Hothead

Jean-Jacques Annaud's second film and one of the sharpest satires of French provincial football. The script is by Francis Veber, and the lead is named François Perrin, the character Veber carried from film to film. Perrin plays right wing for Trincamp and has a bad mouth and a worse temper. After one outburst he is thrown off the team, loses his factory job, and is jailed for a rape he did not commit. Then the team needs players, and he is let out of prison for a French Cup match. He scores both goals. The town declares him a hero overnight, and this is where the film's real subject opens up: the same people, at the same speed. Annaud got the idea while following Guingamp, then a modest club, through the 1973 French Cup. Patrick Dewaere plays Perrin. Jean Bouise won the César for best supporting actor. Who it is for: viewers who like hard comedies about small-town hypocrisy, and anyone who likes Dewaere. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a football film. The match is brief; this is a story about a lynching and the applause that follows. The use of a rape accusation as comic material also sits badly now.