L’Animal (1977) - film review

Michel Gaucher is a stuntman who is about to marry his fiancée, Jane Gardner.  Unfortunately, on the morning of his wedding he has to cancel the ceremony because he is required to perform a stunt for a movie.  The stunt goes awry and Michel ends up in a wheelchair, but this is not the end of his troubles.  Jane has decided to put an end to their relationship and his producer no longer wants to employ him.  Out of work, Michel has to occupy himself with a series of demeaning small jobs until he is once again hired as a stuntman, this time for the famous actor Bruno Ferrari, his perfect double...
© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium)

One of the most commercially successful of Jean-Paul Belmondo’s films of the 1970s, L’Animal gave its iconic lead actor ample opportunity to display his talents as both a comic actor and a world class stuntman.  Whilst the film has not aged as well as some of Belmondo’s other films (something it has in common with all too many comedies made in the late 70s), it features some of his most impressive action stunts and boosted his popularity at a time when the cinema-going public had begun to fall out of love with his nearest rival, Alain Delon.  A badly dubbed Raquel Welch and some highly suspect humour (which shamelessly pokes fun at homosexuals, mentally retarded adults and benefits scroungers) did not prevent it from being the most successful French film of 1977, attracting an audience of just over three million.   In addition to fleeting appearances from Jane Birkin and Johnny Hallyday, the impressive cast includes future stars Josiane Balasko and Richard Bohringer, as well as New Wave director Claude Chabrol in an outrageous cameo.  The jokes are generally strained and sometimes in despicably poor taste, but the indefatigable Belmondo appears to be having the time of his life in a double role (triple role if you include his gorilla impression) that was tailor-made for him.  If only the film was as entertaining as its opening credits...

© filmsdefrance.com 2011

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