One of the cleverest action movies I've ever seen is 1981's Le Professionnel. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays kind of a combination of Rambo and James Bond. An agent for the French government, he's double-crossed by his employers and spends most of the movie slowly and surely exacting his revenge. That doesn't stop him from romancing beautiful women on the way.
He's sent to assassinate the president of a fictional African country. He's sold out by the French government--an expedient solution when the political situation changes while Joss (Belmondo) is in the field. He spends two years in a labour camp before he effects a daring escape with lots of explosions and machine guns.
The first thing he does when coming back to Paris is send flowers to his mistress, Alice (Cyrielle Clair). He also stages an elaborate ruse so he can spend the night with his beautiful wife (Jeanne Beaumont). Only in a French movie.
The ruthless commissaire Rosen (Robert Hossein) becomes his nemesis. He tries to be quite brutal with Joss' wife after this incident but Joss embarrasses him so effectively it nicely sets up the stakes for Rosen's further pursuit of Joss as well as just how brilliant Joss is. We truly believe the message he leaves written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror--he'll always be just behind Rosen.
There's a terrific car chase right in front of the Eiffel Tower and of course Belmondo insisted on doing all of his own stunts.
Le Professionnel is available on The Criterion Channel.
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