Michel Hartog, a sometime architect, is a powerful businessman and famous philanthropist whose immense fortune has just grown that much greater following the death of his brother in an accident.<br> <br> Peter is his orphaned nephew—a spoiled brat.<br> <br> Julie is in an insane asylum.<br> <br> Thompson is a hired gunman with an ulcerated gut.<br> <br> Michel, known for his kindly interest in the disadvantaged, hires Julie to look after Peter.<br> <br> And he hires Thompson to kill them.<br> <br> Julie and Peter escape. Thompson, gut groaning, pursues.<br> <br> Hunter and hunted make their way across France to the remote mountain estate to which Michel has retreated.<br> <br> Bullets fly. Bodies accumulate.<br> <br> The craziness is just getting started.<br> <br> Like Jean-Patrick Manchette’s celebrated <i>Fatale</i>, <i>The Mad and the Bad</i> is a clear-eyed, cold-blooded, pitch-perfect work of creative destruction.