In his Ballade Pour un Voyou, first-time director Jean-Claude Bonnardot has put together an uneven, occasionally suspenseful crime drama that involves a mysterious suitcase -- and an unknown crime. The drama begins when an ex-convict agrees to deliver a suitcase according to the instructions that will be given him, step by step. As he is shunted from pillar to post trying to get the suitcase to its final, as yet unknown, destination, he notices that he is being followed by a gunman. His assignment becomes too much, and he attacks the gunman and runs off with the suitcase, only to find that both sides of the law are hot on his trail. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi