Dobermann

With a strong streak of black humour, the French crime action film Dobermann was brought to the screen by director Jan Kounen. The script, written by Joël Houssin himself, draws on his Le Dobermann series of police novels. It opened in France on 18 June 1997 and in Turkey on 16 January 1998. It runs 103 minutes.

The hero is Yann Le Pentrec, known as Dobermann, played by Vincent Cassel. He leads a crew that hits banks and armoured vans, working for the adrenaline as much as the money, earning him comparisons to a modern Robin Hood. The gang includes his deaf partner Nat, short for Nathalie (Monica Bellucci), her brother Manu, Pitt Bull, who storms luxury shops with an axe, Moustique and Sonia. As Dobermann prepares a huge bank job, Commissioner Sauveur Cristini closes in. Played by Tchéky Karyo, this sadistic, obsessive policeman ignores the rules, internal affairs and paperwork, and goes after the gang with Inspector Baumann. As savage as the criminals he chases, Cristini wants to destroy Dobermann rather than arrest him. Romain Duris is also in the cast.

Its harsh violence made it controversial: in Germany it was placed on the list of media harmful to minors in July 1999, and the uncut version went on sale only in April 2011.