3 hommes à abattre (1980)

There is nothing special with the story: Alain Delon plays Michel Gerfaut, a poker player who witnesses a car accident, brings the victim to the hospital, and the next day two men try to kill him while he is visiting his mother with his girlfriend (played by charming Dalila Di Lazzaro). From a newspaper, Gerfaut learns that the man in the car accident is dead by gunshot, along with 2 other, and that they all worked for Emmerich, who sells aircraft and missiles. Gerfaut asks help from his friend, an intelligence police, who soon is murdered, and Gerfaut is suspected as the murderer. Trapped and hunted, Gerfaut later becomes the hunter, and Emmerich, who thinks Gerfaut works for one of his rivals, tries to buy him. Gerfaut refuses and has to deal with the horrible consequence.

With exciting car chase and violence (which I think unnecessary, like when Gerfaut shoots the blond man and the last scene), no wonder that this movie attracted many viewers when it was released. I read that the successful of this is equal to Borsalino and Le cercle rouge. The dialogues are often filled with humour. "Have you noticed? My breasts are smaller in the morning," says Béa.

I like the scene in Gerfaut's apartment when the concierge comes to tell him that 2 men were looking for him last Friday. She carries a letter in her hand, but it is not for Gerfaut, but for someone who lives on the upper floor. It's quite funny and I've never seen this in any other movie before. In a movie, when someone knocks on your door bringing a mail, usually it's for you. We often forget that there is other people in the apartment building and the concierge doesn't serve the main character in the scene alone.

The music by Claude Bolling is beautiful. I did not expect something like that in an action movie.