Jean-Paul Belmondo was the biggest French action star for several decades. While I was looking for some of his gritty neo-noir thrillers I stumbled upon this movie. The Professional is the French version of James Bond movies following a secret agent hellbent on revenge after his superiors left him to die in Africa. The creative and quite unique opening sequence is very similar to the ones we saw in numerous Bond movies. This takes nothing away from it and the same goes for that highly memorable Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack. I’m certain you’ve heard the title song Chi Mai numerous times in your life. As soon as you hear it, the memories will start flooding your mind.
At this point, we need to clear something up. Probably the most popular French movie with the title The Professional is a 1994 Luc Besson thriller also known as Leon. The movie we’re going to be talking about today has nothing to do with that one. To be honest, The Professional 1981 isn’t that good of a movie. It really shouldn’t work but for some unknown reason, it still managed to capture my attention. Jean-Paul Belmondo with his imposing and charming screen presence is surely one of those unknowns. He looks pretty muscular for a 48-year-old guy in the early eighties. Moreover, Belmondo did all of his stunts, which is pretty crazy for the lead in a movie like this.
A movie that made more than $60 million on a $3.5 million budget. The story will first take us to a fictional country in Africa, Malagawi before returning to France. By the way, those scenes in Africa were actually shot in Camargue, located in the south of France, near Marseille. The rest of the time we’ll be spending in picturesque Paris. For the finale, however, we will be visiting an impressive Château de Maintenon castle. Almost all of the characters in The Professional are shady if not just plain old evil. Even Joss himself, played by Belmondo, isn’t a saint. The plot is quite cynical and sounds pretty authentic with a huge twist at the end.
Supposedly, Michel Audiard, one of the best French writers, didn’t do a good job so Francis Veber reworked the entire script while Michel’s son, Jacques got the writing credit. He would go on to work on a lot of great movies. I’m sure you’ve all heard about his latest one Emilia Perez, which I still refuse to watch as it seems too artsy. However, I sure as shit watched A Prophet and Dheepan. To make things even weirder, the script went through numerous iterations. First, it was supposed to be a serious political drama about the Françoise Claustre hostage affair in Chad. However, Belmondo wanted something lighter and decided to adapt Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal by Patrick Alexander.
At this time, France was going through a difficult situation with its African colonies. Enter Jacques Foccart, a mastermind behind the morally questionable strategy for the newly independent countries like Mauritania, Senegal, and Cameroon, among others. I don’t want to go into details but you can research this on your own if you’re interested. And you already know what I think about colonialism. As in all French movies, the women are beautiful and the men are ugly. Both Cyrielle Clair, Marie-Christine Descouard, and Elisabeth Margoni stole every scene they were in. If we have the Bond girls, why can’t we have Joss girls?
I’ll just add there’ll be a couple of mildly erotic scenes and a bit of nudity throughout this relatively short movie. When it comes to the action and humor, there will be both. And you can bet your sweet ass that the chase scenes will look dangerous as they inevitably did back in the eighties. I just there were more of them. After all this time, the humor has a certain old school charm making it feel funnier than it ought to be. Moreover, the fights, featuring those hilarious karate chops, made me laugh so hard I forgot this is a regular movie and not a parody. You might consider The Professional a B movie but what a B movie it is!
Director: Georges Lautner
Writers: Patrick Alexander, Georges Lautner, Jacques Audiard
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Desailly, Cyrielle Clair, Marie-Christine Descouard, Elisabeth Margoni
Fun Facts: Jean-Paul’s father, famous French sculptor Paul Belmondo helped director Georges Lautner to obtain the permits necessary to shoot the chase scene on the Trocadero area, directly in front of the Eiffel Tower.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082949/
