From the liner notes

Though sentenced to death in France, in absentia, former gangland chief Abel Davos (Lino Ventura) sneaks back to Paris with his children after hiding out in Milan for nearly a decade. Accompanied by appointed guardian Eric Stark (Jean-Paul Belmondo, in his first film after Breathless) and beset by backstabbing former friends, Abel begins a journey through the postwar Parisian underworld that's equal parts throat-grabbing and soul-searching. A character study of a career criminal at the end of his rope, this rugged noir from Claude Sautet (Un coeur en hiver) is a thrilling highlight of sixties French cinema.