Red-Barracuda A professional poker player happens upon a badly injured man in a crashed car and takes him to the hospital, not knowing that the unfortunate gent had been the victim of an assassination attempt. The killers suspect that the dying man must have given out some incriminating information about them and their government employers and set out to make the gambler their next target.Like a few other French thrillers before it, this film certainly owes some debt to Alfred Hitchcock with its story of an innocent man thrust into the middle of a dangerous situation where criminals try to hunt him down and kill him. It's not the most original of story-lines but this fast-paced film remains an enjoyable watch. There is enough action and incident punctuated through its run-time to ensure it never gets boring, such as an exciting car chase through the streets of Paris, a keyhole assassination, an attempted drowning on a crowded beach and a little bit of nudity courtesy of Italian actress Dalila Di Lazzaro who will be familiar to Euro genre fans for her roles in cult items such as Phenomena (1985). But it's really Alain Delon's movie ultimately. The role probably doesn't stretch him too much but he is quite a cool actor and holds things together pretty well I thought. On the whole, I found this to be a very enjoyable movie; it may not have brought anything especially new to the table but it did the job well enough for me.

zardoz-13 Alan Delon plays a Good Samaritan in "Borsalino" director Jacques Deray's thriller "Trois hommes à abattre" who finds himself up to his ears in hot water for his good deed. In a sense, Delon is an innocent bystander who has done nothing wrong but finds himself the object of a man hunt. This film contains some nudity. Otherwise, it is no great shakes with minimal suspense and tension. Gambler Michel Gerfaut is cruising to a nocturnal poker game when he wheels up onto an auto accident and finds a survivor. He takes the crash victim to the hospital, but he doesn't stick around long enough for the hospital to get his name. The doomed man and two other men are gunned down by assassins and the assassins go after our hero because he might have heard something that the dying man said. Guess what? Gerfaut didn't hear anything. Nevertheless, the assassins aren't inclined to let loose ends dangle. They struggle to drown him in the ocean and try to lure him into a phone booth. Eventually, our paranoid protagonist consults an old friend who is a police inspector. The police inspector checks out his apartment. Our hero discovers that two men had been looking for him from his landlord. Not long afterward, somebody knocks at Gerfaut's door but the inspector answers it. The assassin on the other side of the door fires his silenced automatic pistol through the peep hole in the door. When they see our hero exit the building, they realize that they haven't knocked off the right man. A careening car chase ensues and Gerfaut has a shoot out with them. The authorities believe that Gerfaut may have shot the inspector. Meantime, our hero's girlfriend has a close call when she encounters one of her friend's assassins. Eventually, the man who wants Gerfaut killed requests that he come unarmed to his residence. The man is so sure that Gerfaut had a conversation with the dead man that he reacts with incredulity that Gerfaut didn't hear anything. Ironically, the engineer dies, and Gerfaut leaves. Veteran stunt driver Remy Julienne staged the chase sequence. Altogether, "Trois hommes à abattre" is a routine thriller with at least on usage of the F-bomb.

gridoon2018 A rather atypical role for Alain Delon, in the sense that his character is not a super-confident super-cop or something along those lines, but a regular guy (by Delon standards; after all, he's still a professional poker player with a free-spirited Italian girlfriend who proves yet again that a girl's breast size doesn't really matter as long as she's comfortable with her body) who gets accidentally mixed up with a series of assassinations and becomes a target. He seems to be in over his head for a while, but eventually he takes the offensive. The film itself, however, is pretty typical stuff; the story is thin, and there is one of the most inept assassination attempts ever made by a pair who are supposedly at the top of their field (they try to drown Delon in a sea full of swimmers!). On the plus side, there is a memorably shocking scene involving a door's eyehole, and a typically fine Remy Julienne-supervised Paris car chase. ** out of 4.

david melville "It isn't bad luck," hisses the lead villain. "It's incompetence!" In truth, what more can you say for a French film that sets out to emulate the very worst of Hollywood drivel and fails even at that? This atrociously-plotted thriller makes you appreciate the narrative finesse of Death Wish and Dirty Harry, while aging pretty boy Alain Delon (who also produced and co-wrote) is a sadly inadequate stand-in for Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood.Delon plays a laconic gambler who rescues a dying man from a wrecked car. This turns out to be an assassination, not an accident - and Delon, as "the man who knew too much," becomes the killers' next target. This is frankly nonsensical, as Delon knows nothing about the conspiracy, and has never set eyes on the two assassins. Elsewhere, the same duo murder another man but leave his wife alive - even though she's an eye witness to the whole crime. And we're meant to believe they're afraid of getting caught?!Still, it makes an excuse for two gay hit men with appalling 70s haircuts to chase Delon all over Paris. Given his fondness for such ghastly fashion no-no's as white socks with black trousers and black shoes, I could sympathies all too readily with their murderous intent! It all climaxes in the most ludicrous, ineptly-staged car chase you're ever likely to see - but at least Italian sex-bomb Dalila di Lazzaro adds a much-needed touch of glamour as Delon's girlfriend.If this dreadful movie is of any use at all, it's for correcting the old stereotype that European Cinema Equals Art while Hollywood Cinema Equals Trash. True, the Americans may make more trash than the French...but at least they do it properly!