Film Review
Un homme à abattre is an unusual blend of conventional film noir and political
thriller, imbued 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 a near-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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Film Synopsis
In the mid-1960s, a German architect named Fromm is under close surveillance
by a suspicious group of individuals. They track his every movement,
watch his comings and goings, patiently waiting for the moment when they
can make their move. Fromm may look like a respectable engineer today,
but twenty-five years ago he was Schmidt, a notorious Nazi officer at the
Mauthausen concentration camp. One member of the group watching the
architect has a particular interest in him. He is Julius, and it was
his brother who died in the camp under Schmidt's orders. Now that there
can be no doubt as to the man's identity, Julius and his allies can proceed
with their plan. Schmidt will be lured to an abandoned old house on
the pretext of a restoration job and then he will be executed - as coldly
and methodically as he executed countless Jews during the war. Unfortunately,
Schmidt had been anticipating something of this kind, and he turns out to
be far more dangerous and resourceful than Julius's private death squad had
allowed for...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.