Un homme à abattre (1967)

Un homme à abattre is a French thriller film first released in 1967, directed by Philippe Condroyer.  The film stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Valérie Lagrange, Luis Prendes, José María Angelat and Luis Padrós.  It has also been released under the title: A Man to Kill.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Twenty-five years after seeing his brother killed in a Nazi concentration camp, Julius finally has the opportunity to avenge himself.  His former torturer, Schmidt, has been tracked down by a ruthless death squad, who will execute him as soon as Julius has confirmed his identity.  The suspected man, a seemingly respectable engineer, proves to be far more dangerous than Julius and his allies had expected...

Un homme à abattre is an unusual blend of conventional film noir and political thriller, cast with a chilling sense of cold war realism which sets it apart from most other thrillers of its time.  The only diversion from the meticulously framed political drama, filmed in neo-documentary style, is a romantic subplot involving Jean-Louis Trintignant and Valérie Lagrange.  Trintignant is, as ever, magnificent, but this particular Un homme et une femme detour feels so out of place that it is almost surreal.

Whilst the film makes a pleasing change from the overly glamorised, glossy action thrillers of its day, it is weak on exposition, and we get to find out very little about the characters in the film, or their situation.  The director, Philippe Condroyer (the same Philippe Condroyer who gave us Tintin et les Oranges Bleues) seems to be far more preoccupied with the mechanics of espionage and with achieving a sense of gritty realism than in rewarding his audience with the kind of slick suspense thriller they are used to.  Un homme à abattre is an obvious forerunner of the hard-boiled political thrillers of the 1970s and is particularly reminiscent of the films of Costa-Gavras.

© James Travers 2003

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