L'Affaire Coffin on AllMovie

Documentary filmmaker Jean-Claude Labrecque has stayed close to his calling in this dramatization of the trial of Wilbert Coffin in Quebec in the 1950s. Three American hunters were murdered in the woods, and Coffin, an English-speaking prospector from the dominantly Francophone province, came under suspicion. He helped the detectives in their search for clues through the woods and admitted that he had stolen some things from the hunters -- but he certainly did not kill them, he said. In the end, Coffin is arrested and tried while all along he protests his innocence. Given the rising emotions among the pro-French-speaking factions in Quebec at the time as well as other political factors hinted at in the film, Coffin may have been a simple scapegoat. Labrecque informs, as always, but does not necessarily hit the dramatic highs that a feature-length film needs to hold a general audience.