Le marginal

The four star I have given to it is just because of the camerawork. That is (was) very good. However, even Ennio Morricone went way bellow of his standard with this one.

The script is so bad, full of holes, you wonder 'How did we get here?' Broad shoulders, balls dividing in tight jeans, and that famous grin after beating up criminals.

This is Belmondo at his lowest.

With Belmondo as with many of the things that matter, either you love him or you don't. I do, and it comes in the family, so be forewarned :).

There are films that demand not to be analyzed. This is one. Belmondo is a cop who behaves like a gangster to, well, get the gangsters behind bars. His code of ethics wouldn't win medals in any police academy, even a Third World's. Speaking of which, the way we see Marseille, it could well be Turkey or Bolivia :). Facts are not stylized, our hero kills and fails to be killed just by chance. You feel the danger, for instance, when he gets into a squatter's den in order to rescue the daughter of somebody whom he put into jail. He's a hardened man, always with a good blunt answer: "You should have thought about this before!" is what he says to this man when he moans that his daughter has been caught by this delinquents. But then, he gets the victim out of trouble, from an environment that makes his real "nemesis" look less menacing.

Morricone's score doesn't disappoint, as usual. "Beautiful, elegant, tense, suffocating and full of melodrama" (written by Paul Werkmeister "miser42" on Amazon).

It's difficult not to compare this to the masterwork of the genre: THE PROFESSIONAL. While it remains at the top, this would make a great 2nd best, specially if you don't want to get emotional at the end.

Pierre Vernier makes a great if unusual (and thus, welcome) sidekick. Like Jordan, sometimes he doesn't need to utter a word to answer. Henry Silva is finely cast.

Enjoy!

Belmondo is a tough cop. He goes after a big-time drug dealer (played by Henry Silva, normally a great villain - see "Sharky's Machine"; but here he is clearly dubbed, and because of that he lacks his usual charisma). He goes to the scuzziest places of Paris and Marseilles, asks for some names, beats up some people, gets the names, goes to more scuzzy places, asks for more names, beats up more people, etc. The whole movie is punch after punch after punch. It seems that the people who made it had no other ambition than to create the French equivalent of "Dirty Harry". Belmondo, who was 50 here, does perform some good stunts at the beginning; apart from those, "Le Marginal" is a violent, episodic, trite, shallow and forgettable cop movie. (*1/2)

After the success of LE PROFESSIONAL and the likes of PEUR SUR LA VILLE and L'ALPAGUEUR - major action crime flicks - and before the failure of his last action film - LE SOLITAIRE- Jean-Paul Belmondo gave us this one, directed by Jacques Deray, with whom he made BORSALINO, PAR UN BEAU MATIN D'ETE, and LE SOLITAIRE. It is obviously inspired by the DIRTY HARRY fashion, the tough, rough cop - Philippe Jordan - who applies his own methods, against all codes, rules, except his very own ones. Henry Silva plays the villain, this American actor who already played in Daniel Vigne's LES HOMMES and jean Claude Roy's L'INSOLENT, two gritty French crime flicks. The Paris car chase, under the aerial subway line, is of course a tribute to BULLITT, or FRENCH CONNECTION - also car chase under the New York aerial subway line - scene.

I'm a huge fanatic of harsh, gritty and excessively violent cop thrillers from the 70's and early 80's. You know, those flicks with one macho copper solving cases through using hugely unorthodox methods (much against the will of his supervisors) and stumbling upon complex networks and internal corruption. The rudimentary plot is always secondary to the charisma of the lead character, the obligatory virulent car chases, the hardcore violence and the exciting soundtrack. The most famous films are American, like "Dirty Harry" starring Clint Eastwood and "The French Connection" starring Gene Hackman, but over in Europe there was quite a vast number of nasty cop thrillers as well. Most of them were made in Italy, obviously, but the French had Jean-Paul Belmondo! He depicts the ideal macho copper who – dressed in a leather jacket and jeans – singlehandedly pulverizes the Paris-Marseille drug cartel. I'm not at all familiar with Belmondo's work (or at least, not yet) but he boosts the exact right balance between arrogance and utter coolness. Belmondo plays the Parisian police commissioner Philippe Jordan, sent to Marseille to help the local police force with deconstructing the drug business led by Mr. Meccacci. Jordon's methods are effective but slightly nonconformist, like throwing 200kg heroine into the sea. Due to Meccacci's political influences, Jordon is transferred back to Paris, but as a desk clerk in a sleazy red light district. Still he doesn't give up his battle against Meccacci, especially not when his henchmen annihilate one of Jordan's personal friends. There are some impressive action sequences, like the helicopter vs. the speedboat sequence and the wild chase through Paris with an awesome and bulletproof Ford Mustang. The fact that J.P. Belmondo apparently did all of his stunt work himself makes it even more impressive, as some of that stuff looked quite dangerous. The great and heavily underrated Henry Silva portrays the relentless drug baron/super villain, but he's criminally underused and his voice is horribly dubbed. The score is nice but not exceptional and definitely not Ennio Morricone's best work. Overall I certainly cannot say I was displeased with my very first acquaintance with Jean-Paul Belmondo and I'm already curious to check out the other film of his I have lying around; "The Professional".