A graph of the career of Italian director Constantin Costa-Gavras would reveal a geometrically perfect downward slope, beginning at the top with a series of landmark political thrillers (Z, State Of Siege, Missing) and sharply dropping into overwrought Hollywood hackwork (Betrayed, The Music Box, Mad City). In the soft middle rests 1986's Conseil de Famille, a botched attempt to shoehorn slapstick and social commentary into a heist film. Imposing French rocker Johnny Hallyday stars as a professional safe-cracker eager to revitalize the "family business" after he and his partner (Guy Marchand) are sprung from a five-year prison sentence. As their operation continues to succeed, Hallyday takes on more ambitious and sophisticated jobs in order to sustain his family's bourgeois lifestyle. Despite his hypocritical ethical standards, he introduces his clever 12-year-old son (Rémi Martin) to a life of crime, over the objections of his alcoholic wife (Fanny Ardant). Coming from a director known for taking on bold, incendiary topics—including fascism, guerrilla warfare, Nazi war criminals, media corruption, and the KKK—the comparatively slight Conseil de Famille is an anomaly. Costa-Gavras works against his talent for narrative thrust, but his signature moral hand-wringing is still on full display, squeezing all the fun out of the caper genre. Forgotten even by his admirers, this reissue marks the exact point where the once-great director started losing his touch.