Le Marquis (2011)

During a robbery that goes wrong on Place Vendôme in Paris, Quentin Tasseau, a small-time crook thinking of “getting out of the business,” has the money in his decoy briefcase stolen by an unscrupulous bank branch manager. Tasseau nevertheless manages to escape before the police arrive. But Jo, the gang leader, does not forgive him for the heist that ends in a “bank surplus,” since Jo had advanced the hundred thousand euros in the briefcase. Threatened with death, Tasseau wants to make amends and comes up with an idea. Thomas Gardesse, a salesman of alarm systems, is abruptly fired. With no resources, he decides to burgle the home of one of his former clients, a boxer, whose alarm system he installed and whose codes he therefore knows. He knows the client is taking part in a tournament in Las Vegas and is temporarily away from home. Thomas breaks into the apartment and takes a few bundles of banknotes, planning to return them as soon as possible, before the owner gets back. But the boxer, probably after an early defeat, suddenly appears from a nearby room and knocks Thomas unconscious with a powerful punch. Thomas is arrested and sentenced to six months in prison. In prison, after a fight that he happens to win, Gardesse has the “bad idea” of passing himself off as “the Marquis” to another inmate, who is just as surprised as he is and wants to find out who he is. The Marquis is a heist genius whose face no one knows, but Gardesse knew of his reputation from his work installing alarm systems. Through this inmate, now “well informed,” Gardesse’s false identity reaches Tasseau, who decides to break him out: he needs the Marquis’s exceptional talents to get back into Jo’s good graces, since he owes Jo money. So, fifteen days before his release, while out for a walk in the prison yard, Gardesse is abducted by Tasseau, who has chartered a helicopter. Asleep for the purposes of the abduction, Gardesse is immediately put in a trunk, which is promptly loaded into the baggage hold of a plane bound for Manila. A transfer of funds worth 200 million dollars is due to take place very soon in the Philippine capital.