Year: 1986
Language: French
Format: 35mm Colour
Runtime: 87 min
Director: Yves Simoneau
Producer: Claude Bonin
Executive Producer: Francine Forest
Writer: Pierre Curzi, Yves Simoneau
Editor: André Corriveau
Sound: Michel Carron
Music: Richard Grégoire
Cast: Marie Tifo, Jean-Louis Millette, Pierre Curzi, Robert Gravel, Jacques Godin, Yvan Ponton, Eric Brisebois, Jacques Lussier
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada, Les Films Vision 4

Théo (Jacques Godin), a crusty ex-con, does everything in his power to make sure his planned hijacking of an armoured car goes without a hitch. Having assembled a crack team consisting of his girlfriend Roxanne (Marie Tifo), his son Robin (Eric Brisebois), his former cellmate Gildor (Pierre Curzi) and Thomas (Jacques Lussier), a willing armoured-car guard, Théo is confident his scheme will finally bring him the wealth he’s spent a lifetime trying to attain. But an unforeseen twist – Thomas has been replaced in the guards’ rotation by a scheduling change – touches off a bizarre and bloody chain reaction. Two of the guards are killed in the ensuing melee, while the third, Martial (Robert Gravel), wounded during the bungled robbery, has locked himself inside the truck and refuses to hand over the loot.

A crackerjack, bullet-paced thriller with a pungent political subtext, Pouvoir intime adroitly demonstrated that a Canadian could make an offbeat, stylish genre film. It has the slickness of a film many times its budget ($1.7 million) and a sophistication that belies the youth and experience of its director, Yves Simoneau, who plays around here with sex, death, existential irony and witty camera moves. As in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), Simoneau’s criminals undermine cool professionalism with human frailties.

Presented as part of the Perspective Canada programme at the 1986 Toronto Festival of Festivals (now the Toronto International Film Festival®), Pouvoir intime went on to garner nine Genie Award nominations, but won none.