Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Powerful

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Talking to a DVD seller about French cinema,I found out that he has recently picked up some titles starring Alain Delon.With having heard of Delon for years,I decided to join him in tracking down the 3 men to kill.The plot:Driving to his weekly poker game, Michel Gerfaut finds a man,lying in a car covered in blood.Rushing him to the hospital, Gerfaut discovers that it was all too late.Wondering about why that man was killed, Gerfaut gets caught in the cross fire and becomes a target for the killer.Due to the mysterious man selling faulty missiles. (next time try before you buy!) his former buyers set off a missile at Gerfaut.View on the film:Opening with a missile blasting on the screen,co-writer/(along with Christopher Frank and actor Delon) director Jacques Deray & cinematographer Jean Tournier smudge the movie in 80's cream. Heating the action scenes up in splatters of burning crimson,Deray digs into the early days of the decade with chic stylization,by painting the streets and Gerfaut's slick clothes in pristine white which give the wacky car chases and gun fights a real pop.Spun from Jean-Patrick Manchette's novel,the screenplay by Deray/Frank and Delon sadly lacks the over exaggerated sparks of the directing style,due to largely keeping most of the plot vague and confused,until a sharp Film Noir twist gives the flick the desired bite.Joined by a sweet Dalila Di Lazzaro (who also appears topless) Delon gives a good performance as Gerfaut,with Delon taking advantage of his chiseled looks to cast Gerfaut in a rebellious atmosphere,as Gerfaut tries to avoid the 3 men to kill.

Odd French thriller starring Alain Delon about a man on the way to his weekly poker game who stops to help a man who crashed his car. Taking the man to the hospital he soon finds that people are trying to kill him for an unknown reason. What he soon learns is that the man in the car was assassinated and that he is being targeted to prevent him from talking in case the injured man said anything before reaching the hospital.The film walks the fine line between being a tense believable thriller with the fear of being on a hit list for unknown reason, crashing into the unbelievable elements of the story (grand conspiracy, going after our hero despite never finding out if he knows anything, the trail of bodies that clearly points to his innocence, why are they worried about Delon and not the fact that people see the assassins and on and on). The film really works at times (including a great car chase) and at other times makes you shot at the screen in disbelief (who wrote came up with some of this?). Its frustrating because it should be great instead its just okay.Worth a look so long as you don't let the internal inconsistencies get to you.

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…. :)

"It isn't bad luck," hisses the lead villain. "It's incompetence!" In truth, what more can you say for a French film that sets out to emulate the very worst of Hollywood drivel and fails even at that? This atrociously-plotted thriller makes you appreciate the narrative finesse of Death Wish and Dirty Harry, while aging pretty boy Alain Delon (who also produced and co-wrote) is a sadly inadequate stand-in for Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood.Delon plays a laconic gambler who rescues a dying man from a wrecked car. This turns out to be an assassination, not an accident - and Delon, as "the man who knew too much," becomes the killers' next target. This is frankly nonsensical, as Delon knows nothing about the conspiracy, and has never set eyes on the two assassins. Elsewhere, the same duo murder another man but leave his wife alive - even though she's an eye witness to the whole crime. And we're meant to believe they're afraid of getting caught?!Still, it makes an excuse for two gay hit men with appalling 70s haircuts to chase Delon all over Paris. Given his fondness for such ghastly fashion no-no's as white socks with black trousers and black shoes, I could sympathies all too readily with their murderous intent! It all climaxes in the most ludicrous, ineptly-staged car chase you're ever likely to see - but at least Italian sex-bomb Dalila di Lazzaro adds a much-needed touch of glamour as Delon's girlfriend.If this dreadful movie is of any use at all, it's for correcting the old stereotype that European Cinema Equals Art while Hollywood Cinema Equals Trash. True, the Americans may make more trash than the French...but at least they do it properly!