La machine à découdre (1986)

Actor-director Jean-Pierre Mocky subverts the conventions of the police procedural in the inventive French comedy La Machine à découdre (1986). At first blush, the film’s protagonist--a deranged doctor (Mocky) who escapes from a mental ward with hostages in tow--is as dastardly as they come. As Mocky’s film progresses, however, the audience is let in on the joke that the well-meaning doc is actually far saner than the men he keeps at gunpoint--not to mention the maniacal cop bent on taking him down. The film grows increasingly kooky until co-starlets Patricia Barzyk, Christelle Guelielhi, Françoise Michaud, and Isabelle Strawa allow it to explode into a full-on orgy--an irresistible development if ever there was one.