LE VINGT-CINQUIÉME HEURE (The 25th Hour, 1967) **1/2 Existential, very European take on the second world war. Anthony Quinn is asked to play against his strengths as an actor, blown around like a leaf in the wind by situations he couldn't dream of controlling. Henri Verneuil presents an extraordinary spectrum of divergent emotions, sometimes following each other in an inappropriate rapid succession resembling real life. The war, it would seem, didn't have much to do...shouldn't have much affected most people. For some, sure it was about race hatred, empires, maybe a little economics. For more it was a disruption of the family and everything else that was good. There's no historical revisionist whitewashing going on here-no one's as bad as the Nazis but everyone has their problems including the oppressed and their Allied saviours. The plot demands that Virna Lisi establish a lot of credibility fast, and she does. At the conclusion of this film it's probably appropriate to be bewildered even though nothing confusing has happened, nothing that should be anything but confusing, and none of it could have happened anyway, especially the part that did. It doesn't fit accepted cinematic experience that Quinn doesn't get to wreak revenge wielding an emptying six-gun, but revenge has been taken all the same. Blessed are angels of karma.
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