Gleefully putting into practice D W Griffith's maxim that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun , bande ã part is Goddard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the forties, executed with typically Gallic cool. Franz and Arthur, a couple of streetwise chancers, team up with the shy Odile (a beguiling performance from Anna Karina) to plan a robbery. As the trio of misfits roams the cafés of suburban Paris, does a lightning tour of the Louvre, and play-acts shoot-outs, the suspicion grows that this is one heist that is not going to go according to plan.