Le Professionnel (1981)
Directed by Georges Lautner

Film Review

In many ways, Le Professionnel (a.k.a. The Professional) exemplifies the hard-edged, action-oriented thriller that had come to dominate French cinema by the early 1980s, a close cousin of its American counterpart which had proven so popular throughout the 1970s, on both sides of the Atlantic.  By this time, the policier genre was on the cusp of losing its appeal in France, so to retain their audiences producers and directors had to resort to ever-more fantastic plots and increasingly extravagant action sequences, both of which are very much in evidence in Le Professionnel, the most successful French film of its kind in the 1980s.

This feisty knuckle-duster of a film was the third collaboration between director Georges Lautner, who was better known for his thriller parodies, and iconic actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, who had attained the height of his popularity, having seen off his nearest rival, Alain Delon.  Belmondo's previous outings with Lautner - Flic ou voyou (1978) and Le Guignolo (1979) - had been thrillers with a strong comic undercurrent.  Le Professionnel was an altogether different beast, a gritty action thriller, with some savagely realistic fight scenes, a spectacular car chase (something that had become de rigeueur in Belmondo's films since the early 1970s) and an ending so grim that you can hardly take it in.  There are some lighter moments but overall it's a much darker film than we tend to associate with either Lautner or Belmondo.

The film is based on the novel Death of a Thin-skinned Animal by the British writer Patrick Alexander, which was first published in the UK in 1976 and subsequently reprinted in France as Mort d'une bête à la peau fragile in Marcel Duhamel's 'Série noire'.  The latter series of crime novels provided a rich vein for the French film policier, and no fewer than thirteen of Belmondo's films originated from them, most notably Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Doulos (1962), Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965) and François Truffaut's La Sirène du Mississippi (1969).  It was Belmondo, supported by his publicity agent, who came up with the title Le Professionnel, and they had a hard job convincing Lautner and his producer Alexandre Mnouchkine to go with it.

At a time of shifting allegiances between France and its former colonies, the film was highly topical and it serves as a dark satire on the kind of 'realpolitik' that was to prove toxic for several French governments in the 1970s and 80s.  The reputation of French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was damaged by his decision to send troops into the Central African Republic in 1979 to oust its leader Jean-Bédel Bokassa, having previously supported his regime and (allegedly) received gifts of diamonds from Bokassa.  Giscard d'Estaing's defeat in the French Presidential Election in May 1981 would have been fresh in everyone's mind when Le Professionnel was released in October of that year.

Lautner originally gave the task of adapting Patrick Alexander's novel to his longterm screenwriting associate Michel Audiard, but it soon became clear to Lautner and Mnouchkine that his heart was not on the job.  At the time, Audiard was busy writing the dialogue for another prestigious film, Claude Miller's Garde à vue (1981).  So dissatisfied was Lautner with the original script for Le Professionnel that he hired Francis Veber to redraft it.  When he saw the revised script, Audiard was far from impressed and disowned it, insisting that his son Jacques should take his credit on the film.

The Achilles heel of Le Professionnel is, unsurprisingly, its total sinker of a script.  When every character is a two-dimensional caricature, when the plot is so implausible and contrived that it disintegrates as soon as you start to analyse it, and when a totally unrestrained Belmondo resorts to playing the macho superhero yet again, the film cannot help resembling a juvenile comicbook.  With a mere twenty million francs at his disposal, Lautner performs a remarkable salvage job, bringing a similar gusto and gritty realism to that which had rendered his previous thriller Le Pacha (1968) so successful.  Henri Decaë, one of the best cinematographers in the business, works his usual magic, bringing a dynamism and almost mesmeric beauty to the film that more than compensates for its obvious scripting deficiencies. 

Decaë's skill is most in evidence in the brutally realistic prologue, where he succeeds in making Camargue in southern France (the most exotic location Lautner could afford) look like the back of beyond in central Africa.  The action scenes are particularly well-choreographed, and it is almost worth watching the film just for the hair-raising car chase (reminiscent of that seen in Peter Yates' Bullitt) which culminates on the steps of the Trocadéro, in front of the Eiffel Tower.  To make this remarkable sequence a reality, Belmondo asked his father, the sculptor Paul Belmondo, to use his influence as a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts to obtain the necessary authorisation.  It pays to have friends in high places.

In essence, Le Professionnel is really nothing more than an urban spaghetti western, something which is made apparent in its key scene - the climactic duel between Belmondo and his nemesis Robert Hossein, an obvious nod to Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964).  This impression is reinforced by the film's score, supplied by Leone's composer of choice, Ennio Morricone.  The enigmatic main theme, Chi Mai (which is Italian for Who Ever) had originally been written for Maddalena (1971), a Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, and was subsequently used for the BBC television serial The Life and Times of David Lloyd George, broadcast in Britain in the spring of 1981.  The theme became a hit single in the UK and it was when he heard it played on the radio that Belmondo decided to borrow it for his next film (it later became the telephone on-hold music for his production company).

Although Lautner and Belmondo both had reservations about Le Professionnel (mainly on account of the substandard script) it was to prove their most successful collaboration.  The film attracted an audience of 5.2 million spectators in France and enjoyed similar success in other European countries.  This was Belmondo's third biggest commercial success, topped only by Le Cerveau (1969) and L'As des (1982).  Despite its glaringly obvious shortcomings (a plot that doesn't stand up to a second's close scrutiny, some laughably bad acting and a painful dose of female sexploitation), Le Professionnel redeems itself with its striking visuals and a gripping (and wonderfully tongue-in-cheek) denouement.  It's far from being Lautner's best film and Belmondo's performance here rates well below his best, but it's not too difficult to see why the film was box office dynamite, and why it continues to be one of Belmondo's most popular films.  It's all down to the couscous gag...

Film Synopsis

Josselin Beaumont, an agent in the French secret service, is sent to Malagawi, a small African country, to assassinate its president, Njala.  Before Beaumont can complete his mission, there is a dramatic change in relations between France and Malagawi, and Njala is no longer the enemy.  Rather than recall Beaumont, his superiors betray him to Njala, who extorts a confession from him and sentences him to hard labour for the rest of his life.  Two years later, Beaumont succeeds in escaping from his captors and returns to France, intent on revenge.  With Njala due to make an official visit to France in a few days' time, Beaumont notifies his superiors that he intends to carry out his mission and execute the president.  Only one man can stop him and prevent a catastrophic diplomatic incident: the ruthless police chief Rosen...