Under the dark, wild Brittany skies, a young widower, Charles (Michel Duchaussoy), searches for the hit-and-run driver who has killed his son. A passenger in the car, the television star Hélène (Caroline Cellier), leads him to the killer, her brother-in-law Paul. Paul is the kind of everyday monster Jean Yanne (Le Boucher) does best, and, of course, he must die. But it's more complicated than that . . . a lot more. The title of this almost Jansenist film derives from a passage in Ecclesiastics, roughly, “The Beast must die, but the man also must die.” Whether it is beast or man, passion or cunning, that kills is the question, as Charles begins building a new family from the despised Paul's other victims, who all want him dead. This is one of Chabrol's most complicated policiers in its intersecting vectors of revenge and, just too late, love.