Requiem for a Handsome Bastard

Regis Savoie is a thief and a murderer who feels no remorse for what he has done. When his son asks to visit, the prison grants permission; watching for the moment the boy arrives, Savoie grabs a gun and escapes. Outside he first settles old scores, then meets his girlfriend and heads for the hills. Behind him is a detective with no intention of giving up. The film does not turn the escape into a story of heroism, and it shows the price paid by the people around the man. That he makes his son’s visit the means of the escape is the hardest point in the account. It is set in Quebec, in a French speaking world, and the language itself is part of the film’s texture. Gildor Roy takes the lead in Robert Morin’s ninety three minute Canadian film, completed in 1992.