A Man of Action

Lucio Urtubia Jiménez was born in 1931 in Cascante, a small town in Navarra in the north of Spain. He lived most of his life in Paris. He was a legendary bank robber, not interested in personal enrichment; the proceedings of his heists were used in attempting to bring down Francisco Franco's fascist regime and thereby free Spain.

He was an admirer of the Cuban revolution and other liberation movements and he tried (unsuccessfully) to interest Che Guevara in a scheme to bring down the US economy by circulating counterfeit dollars. He was instrumental in the capture of Klaus Barbie in Bolivia and in helping Black Panthers to flee the USA, which put him on the CIA's crosshairs.

Opinions about Urtubia vary, He rated high among his fellow anti-Franco fighters. One of them, Albert Boadella, whom Urtubia helped escape Spain defined him as "a Quixote tilting not at windmills but at real enemies." Unsurprisingly, the French police took a dim view of him as "a criminal mastermind pulling the strings of an international criminal organization." However, he had many admirers and friends on France such as Albert Camus and André Breton.

His most celebrated exploit was in 1977. With the help of master engravers he forged and circulated 20 million worth of Citibank travellers checks. Initially, Citibank tried to force the French police to make an example of Urtubia. However, the plan was too sophisticated for either the police or Citibank and they were forced to capitulate. Urtubia escaped with a short sentence and a substantial take which he distributed among guerrilla groups. Superficially one could compare Urtubia with Robin Hood, However, the latter only led a showy but ineffectual revolt against a few corrupt lords, while Urtubia dealt a lot more successfully with the real villains.

I liked this movie. It takes some liberties with the facts and the point of view is somewhat naive and hero worshipping; the psychology of the characters is not really touched or developed. But the final result is positive. Excellent acting, direction and cinematography.

Despite the interesting premise, the plot fell flat after the intriguing opening sequence. The story starts in 1962, with main character Lucio Urtubia and girlfriend reaching the Paris airport with a bag full of cash. Costumes and set look spot on and the audience is left wondering what will happen next, since the police is in hot pursuit.

There follows the first annoying flashback to 20 years previously, in Spain with teenage Lucio attempting and failing his first bank robbery to help his sick father. Move forward 10 years and Lucio is in Paris, joining his sister and working as a builder. On his construction site, Lucio meets some anarchists who introduce him to the doctrine and Lucio decides to "expropriate" bank money to help comrades in need, with the help of more skilled anarchist robber Quico.

At this stage the timeline starts to get muddles, with Lucio meeting Anne, the love of his life, robbing banks and eventually getting caught and incarcerated, then out again for another round that includes falsifying banknotes and finally printing fake travellers cheques.

The actor playing Lucio looks much older than a twenty-something in the section taking place in 1952 and still much older than girlfriend Anne, even 10 years later. Also, he's not a particularly good actor and seems to be sleepwalking through the movie. Most un-engaging, gets a couple of stars for costumes and sets.

I liked this movie. It caught my interest and I set my phone down. It's a movie about a gentleman who put it to the man and walked away from it scarred by life but still able to make the world a better place. It makes me want to question my limited world view and cheer for the philosophy of an anarchist.

It makes me want to get the book now and look up the biographical account of the characters. Loosely based on a.true story,

This is not an action movie more of a drama, love story, so pour a glass of wine , relax and enjoy.. I don't post or do reviews often and typically look for movies with a 6.0 IMDB rating or better to watch.thus I have this movie 7.0.

"A Man of Action" is an amazing crime drama.

This movie is an amazing character study. It shows an important revolution time period that happened in history and how it affected individual people. The class divide, coming of the corporates, America being a super power, all these topics were discussed very effectively. The writing is awesome, the detailing of the characters and the events was very interesting. Juan jose ballesta gives an amazing performance, he amazingly portrays the characters fire to bring change in the world, and also different stages in his life.

The movie demands your complete attention to enjoy it thoroughly, and it has its pace. So, if you love slow burning biographical crime dramas, give this a try.

Its a film full of entertainment, its full of funny action, and its full of stuff and gadgets that belongs to the era of time. I notice that the police used a peugout just like the one i was born into and thats cool...

its environment of autentic caracters makes me smile over and again, its rude and witty ways to slide out of the polices strongholds are just amazing, the plotspeed is up to your thyroid gland, and the actors casted for this french/spanish/navarranian/basque/catalonian anarchistic freestyler of a biographical drama is just brilliant.

So if you want to lay back to the 1960's paris environment, be my guest, the grumpy old man recommends, and catch me if you can.