Hold-up

Hold-up (1985) is a French crime comedy from Alexandre Arcady that you can watch online on iFILM. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a charming chancer who dresses as a clown and, in broad daylight, walks into the most secure bank in Montreal.

The scheme is brazen: take thirty hostages, run the police ragged with absurd, unreadable behavior, and quietly clear out the vault. Belmondo is in his element here — light, sly, always a step ahead. His accomplices are rank amateurs, and the real threat to the plan comes not from the cops outside but from the human factor within, where one disgruntled partner can bring the whole con crashing down.

Alongside Belmondo are Guy Marchand and a young Kim Cattrall, years before Sex and the City. Shot across France and Canada when Belmondo ruled the French box office and did his own stunts, it's a nimble, good-humored heist with no cruelty and no grime. Stream Hold-up (1985) online on iFILM.