It opens with a burst of violence as a handful of Parisian skinhead dopers break into a drug store and start smashing everything in sight under the neon blue lights. There's a shoot out when the police arrive. Shelves of glass containers explode under the fusillade. The bodies pile up, shot to shreds. Anne Parillaud, a gang moll, senselessly blows the head off a helpless gendarme. The editing is quick, the air filled with curses, the colors garish. In other words, it's an imitation of an American action movie.
It was remade in 1993, as "Point of No Return," with Bridget Fonda in the starring role of the drugged-out psychopath coerced and trained to be a cool government assassin. Let's see -- that would make the later production an American imitation of a French imitation of an American action movie. A few shots are identical. Bridget Fonda is cuter than Anne Parillaud and sexier too, but she's not nearly Parillaud's equal as an expressive actress. Watch Parillaud's infantile delight when she dines out with her government mentor and he gives her a birthday present in the fancy restaurant.
There's quite a bit of gore but not nearly as much as in most American action films of the 80s. After that initial shoot out, deaths tend to take place in singles, not in grand slams. Released from the Institute (or whatever the agency is called) and only drafted for occasional special killings, Parillaud begins to enjoy her freedom. She has an affair with Jean-Hugues Anglade, an affable guy with a kind but slightly goofy face. This generates a bit of jealousy on the part of her government guru, Tchéky Karyo, who has developed a subdued yen for her. But it's just as well he doesn't get her. He has a face like a tractor with a steel plow attached to its front end.
I don't know how well the chips fall into place from a psychological point of view. Parillaud is a real beast at the beginning, a maniacal puppet who tries to bite the ear off her judo instructor. She beans her mentor over the head with a crockery pot and he almost bleeds out. She breaks into wild dances for no reason. I would think professional assassins need to be something other than impulsive and unthinking. They need the soul of a tax auditor not the showmanship of a vaudeville clown. However, the Frog temperament sometimes insists on doing things upside down.
Jeanne Moreau shows up as a tutor in the finer feminine arts. My God, what a face. It's made for the camera. She was never a Hollywood-gorgeous beauty but she was always magnetic. Same with Jean Reno, who shows up at a botched murder as "the cleanup man." There have been so many cleanup men in these kinds of movies that if I see any more I'll start to think they exist.
This movie is a longie at one hour and fifty-seven minutes but it's not slow. The sets are perfectly done, from grand to ruined. The acting is professional throughout. The camera doesn't wobble drunkenly and the editing slows down after the first five minutes so that it's possible to tell who is doing what to whom.
Worth catching if it's on.
It was remade in 1993, as "Point of No Return," with Bridget Fonda in the starring role of the drugged-out psychopath coerced and trained to be a cool government assassin. Let's see -- that would make the later production an American imitation of a French imitation of an American action movie. A few shots are identical. Bridget Fonda is cuter than Anne Parillaud and sexier too, but she's not nearly Parillaud's equal as an expressive actress. Watch Parillaud's infantile delight when she dines out with her government mentor and he gives her a birthday present in the fancy restaurant.
There's quite a bit of gore but not nearly as much as in most American action films of the 80s. After that initial shoot out, deaths tend to take place in singles, not in grand slams. Released from the Institute (or whatever the agency is called) and only drafted for occasional special killings, Parillaud begins to enjoy her freedom. She has an affair with Jean-Hugues Anglade, an affable guy with a kind but slightly goofy face. This generates a bit of jealousy on the part of her government guru, Tchéky Karyo, who has developed a subdued yen for her. But it's just as well he doesn't get her. He has a face like a tractor with a steel plow attached to its front end.
I don't know how well the chips fall into place from a psychological point of view. Parillaud is a real beast at the beginning, a maniacal puppet who tries to bite the ear off her judo instructor. She beans her mentor over the head with a crockery pot and he almost bleeds out. She breaks into wild dances for no reason. I would think professional assassins need to be something other than impulsive and unthinking. They need the soul of a tax auditor not the showmanship of a vaudeville clown. However, the Frog temperament sometimes insists on doing things upside down.
Jeanne Moreau shows up as a tutor in the finer feminine arts. My God, what a face. It's made for the camera. She was never a Hollywood-gorgeous beauty but she was always magnetic. Same with Jean Reno, who shows up at a botched murder as "the cleanup man." There have been so many cleanup men in these kinds of movies that if I see any more I'll start to think they exist.
This movie is a longie at one hour and fifty-seven minutes but it's not slow. The sets are perfectly done, from grand to ruined. The acting is professional throughout. The camera doesn't wobble drunkenly and the editing slows down after the first five minutes so that it's possible to tell who is doing what to whom.
Worth catching if it's on.