O Marginal

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!

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.

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".

Just as Jean-Paul Belmondo's THE PROFESSIONAL (1981) recalled the Charles Bronson 'loner' action vehicles, this one evokes memories of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" cop shows…which, by extension, connects it to the Italian poliziotteschi – of which the American co-star of THE OUTSIDER, Henry Silva, was a regular! Anyway, Belmondo is a maverick cop up against drug kingpin Silva: he intercepts a consignment of heroin (chasing the speedboat transporting it via helicopter), but the criminal's influence with city officials gets him transferred from Marseille to a low-life district! As was the case with the earlier film, the credits take care to establish the fact that the ageing star performed his own (often dangerous) stunts; in fact, every fifteen minutes or so, he's seen getting into a scuffle, a chase or a shoot-out – without necessarily advancing the main plot.

Still, in spite of the protagonist's superficial nonchalance, he's shown to have a heart: befriending a hooker, saving a convict's teenage daughter from life as a junkie, and paternally overseeing the 'legitimate' activity of a young small-time crook; when the latter opposes Silva's offer of 'protection' and winds up dead, the conflict between policeman and racketeer becomes a personal one. Mind you, the overall handling is anything but subtle – and blatantly commercial (why else would we be treated to the excess of sleaze on display, including an irrelevant excursion at a gay club?)! The film features another Ennio Morricone score which virtually hinges on a single catchy riff, though it's not quite as haunting as his work on THE PROFESSIONAL. The R2 DVD I rented also featured an Audio Commentary by director Deray which was, unfortunately, unsubtitled and enticing theatrical trailers for two other films Belmondo made for director Philippe De Broca, LE MAGNIFIQUE (1973) and L'INCORRIGIBLE (1975).

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.