3 hommes à abattre

I liked this, some negative comments on this board notwithstanding... I thought the action scenes were not bad for an 80s movie. It's obviously an attempt to make a Hollywood-style action flick. While there were probably better action/thriller flicks made in the 80s, I can think of many, many worse ones! Having seen it for the first time when I was 18, the high point quite obviously was Dalila Di Lazzaro's chest, a memorable scene… :) I bought a VHS copy on Ebay a few years ago, in German – that's all I could find.

What was the car he drove at the beginning of the movie, by the way? A Lancia Gamma.

As for the comment about Delon wearing white socks with black pants, that actually was considered somewhat fashionable in Europe of the 80s…. :)

A better- than- routine French crime flick, with Alain Delon as "the wrong man in the wrong place" getting accidentally mixed up with arms dealers.

Typically convincing effort from Delon, nice pessimistic atmosphere and strangely surprising ending make this one a treat for eurocrimi fans.

Includes some brief nudity and "unnecessarily" graphic violence for the viewers pleasure, too. Not a masterpiece, but entertaining, nevertheless...

Released on video in Finland in the early eighties.

A professional poker player happens upon a badly injured man in a crashed car and takes him to the hospital, not knowing that the unfortunate gent had been the victim of an assassination attempt. The killers suspect that the dying man must have given out some incriminating information about them and their government employers and set out to make the gambler their next target.

Like a few other French thrillers before it, this film certainly owes some debt to Alfred Hitchcock with its story of an innocent man thrust into the middle of a dangerous situation where criminals try to hunt him down and kill him. It's not the most original of story-lines but this fast-paced film remains an enjoyable watch. There is enough action and incident punctuated through its run-time to ensure it never gets boring, such as an exciting car chase through the streets of Paris, a keyhole assassination, an attempted drowning on a crowded beach and a little bit of nudity courtesy of Italian actress Dalila Di Lazzaro who will be familiar to Euro genre fans for her roles in cult items such as Phenomena (1985). But it's really Alain Delon's movie ultimately. The role probably doesn't stretch him too much but he is quite a cool actor and holds things together pretty well I thought. On the whole, I found this to be a very enjoyable movie; it may not have brought anything especially new to the table but it did the job well enough for me.

A professional gambler on his way to the gambling house saved a guy who crashed on the countryside road and by not asked or checked first whether that guy was wounded badly or where his wounds were, he just hauled him out of the car, and again, didn't pay any attention to anything else. He drove and sent the he-thought-the-guy-was-just-a wounded-car-crash-survivor and a complete stranger to the hospital emergency. And again, the nurse and the two emergency workers didn't pay any attention to the condition of the guy in the poker gambler's car, just hauled him to the gurney without checking first what the condition of that person in the car with so much blood, until after you-don't-know-how-long, a doctor came out announced the guy they brought in had two fatal gunshot wounds. What kind of French hospital in the 80s was this? Emergency room didn't seem to have anything emergent. And the gambler didn't even pay any attention to his car's backseats, the blood on the seats and the floor? Anyway, the most stupid scenario was the gambler didn't pay any attention to the guy he helped sending to the hospital, he didn't witnessed the actual killing or assassination of that guy, why those two so-called hit-man bozos would bother to have him eliminated? For what? The gambler didn't even looked at the face of the wounded guy, albeit linked him as one of the assassinated three men.

Furthermore, what's the purpose behind these killings? The French screenplay writers usually drafted stupid scripts without any logic. Delon just produced and played those cool but stupid roles with his handsome face.

This is such a stupid and mindless film with non-exist logic. If you could watch on or even finish it, you'd better have your I.Q. re-tested.

A previous reviewer has referred to Alain Delon as an ' ageing pretty boy'. Time stops for no one of course but it takes more than just a pretty face to maintain a film career as long as his. Joseph Losey, who directed him in 'Monsieur Klein', remarked on his complex nature. This and his air of unpredictability makes him watchable whatever his material. Now in his eighties I am sure he looks back with pride on the films he made with Visconti, Antonioni, Clement, Melville, Verneuil and Cavalier.

It is probably best to draw a discreet veil over many of his later films although he excelled as Mr. Klein, was awarded a well-deserved Cesar for 'Notre Histoire' and played both Baron de Charlus in 'Swann in Love' and the title role in 'Retour de Casanova' despite being physically miscast in both.

So we come to 'Three Men to Kill'! The Michel Gefaut of Delon narrowly escapes death at the hands of assassins working for an organisation that seems to think he knows more about its shady dealings than he should but the tables are turned when the hunted becomes the hunter....... By far the most interesting characters are as always, the villains, played here by veterans Michel Auclair and Pierre Dux, who made their respective film debuts in 1946 and 1932! Both these actors convey so much by doing so little and Dux is gifted the best line: "Art is an indispensable futility." Subject for debate!

It is also nice to see fellow veteran Simone Renant in her last film role, as Delon's mother. Good performance from Christian Barbier as his buddy on the force.

The love interest is supplied by Dalila di Lazzaro who is adequate in the role.

Good production values, subtle score, utterly ludicrous plot and a customary car chase that has been done so much better.

Delon has produced and it is capably directed by Jacques Deray with whom Delon made nine films, of varying quality.

One should not approach this film with too many expectations for it is what it is: cinematic chewing gum.