It
is Rififi with catnip. Two crooks
think they have their caper in the bag when they enlist the unwittingly help of
dozens of mewing stray cats. Yes, but French noirs usually end badly, don’t
they? Such will be the case for the luckless losers in Alain Gagnol &
Jean-Loup Felicioli’s animated short Un
Plan D’Enfer (trailer
here),
which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Plan is really just a
morsel from the filmmaking duo responsible for A Cat in Paris and Phantom Boy to tide us over in between features—but it is a tasty one. Once again,
they engage with the cinematic vocabulary of film noir, directly tipping their
hats to the Jules Dassin classic. Mo and Carl expect to have all night to chop
through the floor boards to their anticipated loot, because the racket of
dozens of stay cats they have hopped up on pure catnip extract will mask the
sounds they make. That’s the plan at least, but we know what that’s worth.
