Synopsis
The Inquisitor (Garde à vue, 1981) — watch online on iFILM — is a French psychological thriller directed by Claude Miller. New Year's Eve. A police station. Two men in an interrogation room. Inspector Gallien has called notary Martinaud in as a witness to the murders of two children. Within minutes it is clear this is not a conversation — it is a trap.
Lino Ventura plays Gallien with a particular kind of patience: he doesn't shout, he accumulates. Michel Serrault gives Martinaud layer after layer — composed, then rattled, then something harder to read — shifting the audience's read on him with almost every exchange. Romy Schneider appears in a handful of scenes as Martinaud's wife, and every one of them reorients the whole story.
Eighty-four minutes, almost entirely one room, no action in the conventional sense. Claude Miller built genuine suspense out of pure dialogue and two actors working at the peak of their craft. It is the kind of thriller that gets better the second time, once you know what you were actually watching. Stream The Inquisitor (1981) online on iFILM.
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