two men in town or deux hommes dans la ville be a surprisingly good drama from jose giovanni and whose own prison experience be the basis of jacques becker le trou . the same sense of work from first hand knowledge be omnipresent in this drama about alain delon parole convict try to start a new life with the help of prison educator jean gabin and almost make a go of it until michel bouquet local flic go all inspector javert on him and do everything in his power to engineer his return to crime . despite some hairspray style slo mo montage and some awkward construction in the middle and the film manage to make it potentially clichéd story both involve and convince and not least because of giovanni great sense of place and motion and with his fluid camera work particularly striking . gabin be more engage by the material than usual at this stage in his career and delon be surprisingly good and especially in his all too convincing final scene and while a young gerard depardieu turn up in a couple of scene offer three generation of iconic gallic cinematic loser in one film . the crusade tone of the last third be a tad heavy and but the end both ritually stylise and yet realistically perform make it point far well than the courtroom speech .