Film / Hold-up

Hold-up is a 1985 Franco-Canadian heist action comedy film directed by Alexandre Arcady and written by Arcady, Daniel Saint-Hamont and Francis Veber, based off the novel Quick Change by Jay Cronley.

Grimm (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a clever French scoundrel who plans to rob the Intercontinentale, the most secure bank of Montreal, in Quebec. Dressed as a clown, he takes 30 hostages in it. While confusing and ridiculing the police and Commissioner Labrosse (Jean-Pierre Marielle) in particular with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of $2.3 million and flee with his accomplices, his friend Georges (Guy Marchand) and the latter's girlfriend Lise (Kim Cattrall). But then trouble arises with Lise's personal feelings for Grimm and a former prison comrade of Grimm chasing them...

The novel was adapted on film again in 1990, in the USA this time, as Quick Change, with Bill Murray and Geena Davis.

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Hold-Up provides examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Pervert: When he's wandering naked in the forest, Jérémie the taxi driver bumps into a couple that's having a romantic picnic that's getting intimate, interrupting them to ask for help. The couple's man gets angry at him and mistakes him for a pervert, since he's naked with just leaves to conceal his crotch.
• Actionized Adaptation: The film added much more car chases than the book had. Jean-Paul Belmondo wouldn't have had it any other way, since he loved to invokeddo stunts himself up to this point.
• Adaptation Expansion: The Bank Robbery is only 10 pages long in the novel, while in the film it's 45 minutes-long.
• Adaptation Name Change: Grimm's girlfriend Phyllis from the book is named Lise in the film, and Lackey is changed to Georges.
• Adaptational Location Change: From New York City in the novel to Montreal in the film.
• Adaptational Nationality: Everyone's nationality is changed from Americans in the novel to either French or Canadians in the film.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the novel, Grimm is more of a Sad Clown during the bank robbery, akin to how Bill Murray would portray him in Quick Change. Here, when Grimm isn't threatening someone, he acts like a merry and jokey clown.
• Bank Robbery: Grimm and his gang rob the allegedly most secure bank in Montreal.
• Batman Gambit: During the bank robbery, the cops behave exactly the way Grimm expected them to.
• Billed Above the Title: As with many of his films of The '70s and The '80s when he was working with publicist and editor René Chateau, Jean-Paul Belmondo's name is printed in big letters and place above the title on the poster.
• Bond One-Liner: Grimm has a line after causing Lasky to crash his tow truck in a mound of salt.
  Grimm: Salt preserves well.
• Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Grimm forces the bank's director to open the safe with his fingerprints.
• Bros Before Hoes: After the heist, Grimm keeps refusing to abandon Georges and leave solely with Lise as she loves him and not Georges, out of his friendship with Georges.
• Canon Foreigner: There's no character that's comparable to Lasky in the book.
• Car Meets House: When being chased by Lasky after robbing the Intercontinentale bank, Grimm and his gang crash their car into... another bank.
• Chase Scene: Lasky keeps going after Grimm, Georges and Lise to steal them the heist money, first in his tow truck when they're in a car, then with a big rig when they're in a schoolbus.
• Comically Small Demand: Among Grimm's ridiculous demands during negociations with the police, he asks for a pizza.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Grimm's whole bank robbery plan hinges on the police being confused by his (literally) clownish antics, and it works.
• Crazy-Prepared: It took two years to Grimm to plan the heist.
• Creator Cameo: Director Alexandre Arcady has a cameo, he enters the Royal Monceau hotel's hallway with Grimm and Georges.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Grimm ended up in prison in Mexico a few years before the heist, for reasons that go unexplained. He met Georges there.
• Determinator: Lasky is really determined to steal the heist money to Grimm and keeps chasing him in the second half of the film, up to stealing a big rig after his tow truck gets stuck in a mound of salt.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Ultimately, neither Grimm nor Georges ends up with Lise. Grimm because he stands by Bros Before Hoes, and Georges because she wanted to dump him no matter what.
• Disguised Hostage Gambit: In order to escape, Grimm puts his clown disguise on the bank director, takes his clothes to disguise himself as a old man, ties him up on an office chair and leaves him in the boiler room. The police momentarily thinks it's Grimm.
• Disguised in Drag: Georges disguises himself as a woman in the final scene in Rome, when he and Grimm plan another Bank Robbery.
• Eiffel Tower Effect:
  • The penultimate scene takes place in Paris. Sure enough, the Eiffel Tower is seen first, combined with accordion music.
  • The final scene in Rome has the Piazza Navona with the Bernini fountains.
• Expy: Lasky, the burly former inmate and tow truck driver with a dark beard who keeps chasing after Grimm's gang to steal them the money. He very much resembles Bud Spencer's characters from The '70s and The '80s.
• Fake Pregnancy: It turns out the pregnant woman is Georges's girlfriend Lise, and her big belly is fake.
• Fat Bastard: Lasky is a fat, burly and jerkass former prison comrade of Grimm and tow truck driver who's determined to rob Grimm's gang from the money they robbed in Montreal.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Rather "Bank robbers stole my vehicle". Grimm, Georges and Lise steal a taxi, then a schoolbus to escape.
• Honor Among Thieves:
  • Grimm never abandons his friend Georges no matter how Lise tries to convince him to do it. He also makes good on his promise to buy Jérémie's silence off with a part of the heist's money.
  • Even though Lise wants to dump Georges and leave with Grimm, she asks Grimm to give Georges his due part of the money.
• Hostage Situation: Grimm takes 30 people hostage inside the bank. His two accomplices pass as hostage bank customers.
• I Have a Family: One of the hostage bank employees keeps pleading to Grimm with the fact that he has four children.
• Irony:
  • When being chased by Lasky after robbing the Intercontinentale bank, Grimm and his gang crash their car into... another bank, and Grimm tells the employees "This is not a hold-up!".
    Lise: We're going to be arrested in another bank, great...
  • Grimm uses yet another bank in a ploy to flee Canada, via a fake bomb alert.
    Labrosse: I don't understand... There's 371 banks in Montreal, it's like he's gonna rob them all!
• Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Once the gang reaches the airport, Lise disguises herself as a flight attendant.
• Karma Houdini: Grimm, Georges and Lise manage not to get arrested in the end, although it appears Lise keeps the money for herself.
• Leitmotif: Lasky has a Country Music song about Hard Truckin', "Running Wild", accompanying each of his appearances.
• Love Triangle: Lise is the girlfriend of Georges, but she has no interest in him and prefers Grimm.
• Monster Clown: Grimm during the robbery, at least as far as the bank hostages and police are concerned.
• More Dakka: When Grimm shoots the light of Commissioner Labrosse's car as the latter orders him to surrender with a megaphone, all of the police force opens fire against the bank.
• Ms. Fanservice: Lise is a gorgeous woman (being played by Kim Cattrall in her prime helps). Following the heist, she takes a shower then briefly crosses the living room naked and still a bit wet, in plain view of Grimm and Georges.
• Naked People Are Funny: Jérémie scares a couple that was having intimate time in the forest when asking them for help. Not helped by the fact that he's naked and made himself a loincloth with leaves. He ends up chased by Mounties.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: The French actors playing Canadian Commissioner Simon Labrosse and his aides didn't even bother to imitate the accent from Quebec or use vocabulary from there. The characters sound like they come from Paris more than anywhere else, and Labrosse above all. And neither does the taxi driver played by Jacques Villeret. Amusingly, Jean-Paul Belmondo did use the accent (or tried to) when Grimm escapes the bank disguised as an old man.
• Right Under Their Noses: Grimm escapes the bank disguised as an old man right under the police's nose.
• Shout-Out: Upon meeting Lise again in Rome, Grimm is disguised as a Pierrot and plays Nino Rota's La Strada theme with a trumpet.
• A Simple Plan: The complex, intricate bank robbery that Grimm and his friends have planned goes off without a hitch. However, what should be the incredibly simple matter of driving to the airport to make the getaway turns into a convoluted, mishap-ridden nightmare.
• Smarter Than You Look: Grimm has this line at one point when the police tries to outsmart him by putting a sleeping chemical in the pizza they bring him. He had the bank's main security guard eat a slice (he then falls asleep), knowing they would try to neutralize him this way.
  Grimm: Sleeping chemicals in the pizza, really? I might be crazy, but I'm not dumb.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Lasky has been stalking Grimm for a while, knows they robbed the bank and chases them afterwards.
    Lasky: Never without me, Grimm! Never without me! [Evil Laugh]
  • Turns out Lise doesn't love Georges and grew feelings for Grimm. The latter didn't expect this, and it becomes a thorn on the side of their flight from the heist over time.
    Grimm: I hate the human factor. One tries to be prepared, and here comes this damn human factor.
• Stealing from Thieves: Lasky keeps going after Grimm to try stealing him the money of the heist.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: The police puts a sleeping chemical in the pizza Grimm demanded. Unfortunately for them, Grimm figured they would do this and has the bank's security guard eat a slice, making him sleep as a result.
• The Taxi: Grimm, Lise and Georges hire Jérémie, a taxi driver (played by Jacques Villeret), to escape in the second half of the film. When the taxi company calls Jérémie to warn him about taking two men and a woman as clients, Grimm has him stop in a forest, and he (willingly) ends up naked in a house while Grimm, Lise and Georges flee with his taxi.
• Telepathic Sprinklers: All of the bank's vault's sprinklers go off when Grimm shoots one.
• Villain Protagonist: The story is about three bank robbers who cause a Hostage Situation during their robbery.
• Villainous Rescue: Just as Grimm, Lise and Georges crashed into another bank and are at gunpoint of the bank's security guard, they're towed by Lasky, albeit he does that to steal them the money they stole in the first bank.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Travelling in buses makes Georges sick, and he throws up through a window offscreen.
• We Need a Distraction: In order to get the gang across police roadblocks, Grimm diverts the attention of the police towards another bank in Montreal by causing a fake bomb alert in it.
• Zip Me Up: After the heist, Lise asks Georges to button the back of her dress.

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