Détective (1985) review

The title is something of a red herring - sure, there is some detective work, but detective work in a strictly Godardian sense, meaning the investigative aspect of the movie is, for the most part, not exactly the point. It's cluttered with side characters and odd details: a young girl who likes to bare her breasts, Julie Delpy as a teenager, a boxer who punches tennis balls, the Mafia, a bickering couple, Jean-Pierre Léaud as a jittery inspector, plenty of puns and the largest Toblerone you'll ever see. None of this comes together and I gather none of it is supposed to - it strikes me as the work of a filmmaker with Filmmaker's Block, though some will of course staunchly defend it as a minor exercise in genre deconstruction. But where's the wit?