Les Morfalous (1984)
Directed by Henri Verneuil

Film Review

Les Morfalous marks the end of a twenty-five year association between two pre-eminent figures in French cinema from the 1960s - director Henri Verneuil and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.  It was their eighth collaboration, and yet another attempt at a blockbuster in the unashamedly American style.   Whilst the film does have some good jokes (some however in very, very bad taste), and the action stunts are impressive (albeit more Grand Guignol than realistic), the script is weak and the grey-haired Belmondo not too convincing as an action hero.  The moral ambiguity of Belmondo's character is also unsatisfying and it is next to impossible to find anything to like in his portrayal of a crude, self-serving Legionnaire.  Jacques Villeret and Michel Constantin come off far better, both having sympathetic roles and a decent share of the best jokes.  Verneuil makes the best of the material he has at his disposal and, whilst clearly not his best film, it does just about pass for entertainment.

Film Synopsis

In 1943, a detachment of the French Foreign Legion is tasked with an usual but extremely hazardous mission during the Second World War - to salvage a fortune in gold bullion from the vault of a bank in a North African town.  German soldiers already surround the town and the legionnaires are all but wiped out in an ambush.  The only survivors are Sergeant Augagneur, Adjutant Mahuzard and Boissier.  Enlisting the help of a cowardly artillery man named Béral, these three take possession of the only remaining canon and launch a fierce assault on their German attackers.  Augagneur, Boissier and Béral are all for sharing the gold between themselves, against the wishes of Mahuzard and the bank's director Laroche-Fréon.  Augagneur strikes up an agreement with a German soldier to take possession of the gold and help him carry it away in tanks, whilst his comrades are slaughtered in another exchange of fire.  When the French army appears and surrounds Augagneur with his ill-gotten gains he is fêted as a hero...