La Scoumoune is a French crime film first released in 1972, directed by José Giovanni.  The film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo, Aldo Bufi Landi, Claudia Cardinale, Michel Constantin and Enrique Lucero.  It has also been released under the title: Hit Man.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Roberto Borgo, a tough hitman, returns to Marseilles to clear his friend Xavier Saratov of a murder charge.  He soon runs into the gang of crooks who implicated Xavier in the crime.  Having dispatched their leader, Villanova, Roberto takes charge, and blackmails the crooks into building up a fund for Xavier’s defense.  Robert’s efforts prove in vain:  Xavier loses the case and is sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour.  Later, Roberto is involved in a bar-room shoot-out with another band of criminals.  He survives the gunfight but is arrested and sent to the same prison as his friend Xavier.  Both men are prepared to risk anything to regain their freedom...

Anyone who had previously seen Jean Becker’s 1961 film Un nommé la Rocca could be forgiven for having a strong sense of déjà vu when watching this film.  La scoumoune is effectively a re-make of that film, which itself was based on José Giovanni’s own novel L’Excommunié.  The sense of familiarity is compounded by having acting legend Jean-Paul Belmondo playing the same lead character in both films.

The director José Giovanni rated L’Excommunié as one of his favourite works, and an obvious subject for screen adaptation when he became a film director.  He was probably also motivated by his frustration with Jean Becker’s earlier adaptation of his novel.  Un nommé la Rocca suffered greatly because of intervention from the producer, who wanted to tone down the violence and immoral tone in Giovanni’s novel.  The result was a pretty bland gangster film, which satisfied neither Giovanni nor the film’s star, Belmondo.  La scoumoune was Giovanni’s attempt to set the record straight and tell his story in the way he had intended.  In contrast to the sanitised earlier adaptation, La scoumoune is far more explicit in its depiction of death and violence, one of the things which makes this the better of the two films. 

The film’s main strength lie in its visuals.  The photography is of a high standard – particularly the prison and mine-clearing scenes towards the end of the film.  In addition, the fight sequences are fast, furious, and very bloody, having a sense of realism that was probably quite daring at the time. 

When this film was made, its lead actor Jean-Paul Belmondo had become less of an actor and more an international superstar, after the roar-away success of such films as L’homme de Rio and Borsalino .  As a consequence, his performance in this film (and many subsequent films) is somewhat marred by his halo of success.  Belmondo was far more accessible and enigmatic when he was an unknown quantity.

Despite some clumsy padding (such as the ridiculous attempt to rescue Xavier and Roberto from the prison), this is, overall, an entertaining film, and an interesting study of the morality of the criminal milieu.

© James Travers 1999

Write a review for this film...


What do you think of this film?

More French Drama
Recent DVD releases