Le marginal

This film is a guilty pleasure. It is by no means a very good film but it works. You get straight into the action when Belmondo's tough guy cop is sent from Paris to clean up Marseilles with his very unconventional methods. They backfire and he is put on the backburner. However, in a good cop movie, the cop never lets go. The story is rather pointless (and funnily enough a lot of villians in 80s Belmondo films have the same name) but the action works really well. Henry Silva as the villain makes the film stand out from the rest. And watch out for the red Fiat 131 that was used in every film Belmondo made in the 80s.

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)

This is master-piece, one of the best movies I've ever seen. Belmondo is excellent, and Tcheky Karyo, of course. Music of Ennio Morricone is so beautiful that you can't describe it (it reminds me on music in movie "Frantic" by Polanski, where Morricone also made music). This one of the best detective movies, ever shoot in the world cinematography, of course with "The French Connection". You have to watch it.

This is really nothing very special but tells its story efficiently enough and is packed with action. Some time after about the halfway mark, I began to get a little restless as we went through yet another rather predictable punch up but then the film changes gear and we are off to a laid back but pleasing denouement. Belmondo is great throughout, aged 50 at the time and if he really did do all those stunts as we are told it is remarkable. What with crossing motorways and dodging the traffic and leaping out of trains and a helicopter and the impressive Paris car chase, this is one massive performance and still remaining his iconic self with that twinkle in the eye. Henry Silva, five years older than Belmondo has less to do but still helps give the film its gravitas. The Morricone score is fine and even sounds really 80's at times, although I'm not sure that's a good thing. Plenty of attractive location shooting in both Marseille and Paris and plenty also of pretty girls along the way. Nothing profound here but a well made and tough action movie.

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.