User reviews

This dramatic fast pace triller was written by Jean-Claude Carriere and directed by Jacques Derey. It tells the story of Frenchman Lucien Bellon (Jean-Louis Trintignant) a man deeply in debt with the French mob. To settle accounts he agrees to travel to America with the sole task of assassinating a high powered Mob Boss. The assignment goes according to plan with one snag, upon completing his task he discovers he has been targeted by Lenny (Roy Scheider) an American hit man. There are plenty of speedy shootings and get-aways with interesting and secretive meetings which keeps the audience guessing as to who the Bad guys are. Eye candy is provided by beautiful and seductive Ann-Margret and sultry Angie Dickinson. The movie is interesting in that perennial Good guy Roy Scheider plays the heavy and Felice Orlandi nearly always a heavy, plays Anderson a cop. Good entertainment. ****

Very low key actioner with sprinkles of offbeat humor. French hit man does a job only to find the roles are reversed and he is now the target of another hit man. Trintignant is well cast as a man not only confused with his unusual predicament, but also with southern California culture. There's been many, many films done in Los Angeles, but the excellent location shooting seems to show you a whole new city. Although the film stays very true to it's unique form the downbeat ending could've and should've been avoided. Georgia Engle is a delight as a dumb housewife.

Bizarre mixture of elements: character study, romance, crime melodrama and action flick. Terrifically filmed on vivid Los Angeles locales by a French director and crew, story follows foreign hit-man on assignment in L.A. being tracked down and targeted for death. Some of the characters here are delicious: Jean-Louis Trintigant is super-cool as the French gunman, Roy Scheider is his nemesis, Ann-Margret sad and desperate as a former flame of Trintigant's boss, Angie Dickinson as the cheating wife of a Bel Air crime czar, Georgia Engel as an innocent housewife who manages to get involved. Subtle--some may say somnambulant--thriller, less frenetic than most American pictures in the crime genre, with emphasis on character detail and emotion. Unusual and worth-watching. **1/2 from ****

"The Outside Man" is one of those films that I would classify as a "guilty pleasure." I first saw it as a child of eleven on the second half of a double bill with "Little Big Man" at a retro drive-in in 1974. This is exactly the type of film my parents would have walked out on in fifteen minutes, since my Dad is a strict law-and-order type and likes films where there are good guys and bad guys and the good guys win. Lucky for me, this film played FIRST, so they were stuck sitting through it. I, for one, loved it because it was fast-paced and action-packed (and very violent) and couldn't have cared less that everyone in it was a crook. (I still don't.) It's one of my favorite films of the '70's and remains one I watch again and again.

"The Outside Man"'s plot is simple: A French hit man (Jean-Louis Trantignant) travels to Los Angeles to kill a mobster. Upon completion of his assignment, he returns to his hotel to find he has been checked out and that his belongings (wallet and passport included) are gone. Upon leaving the hotel, he is ambushed by an American assassin (played with icy menace by Roy Scheider, a million miles from his "Jaws" sheriff), who has obviously been hired to kill him. After an exciting chase through the streets of L.A., and a brief respite in the apartment of a dippy widow and her smart-aleck son ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show"'s Georgia Engel and a very young Jackie Earle Haley), he contacts his boss and is told to find the boss's ex-moll Nancy Robson (Ann-Margret). He meets her in a topless bar and she agrees to help him get the hell out of Dodge. This sets up a series of chases and shootouts as she tries to help him leave town while he dodges Scheider's bullets.

Sure, this film is at times as trashy as it sounds. But it's also highly entertaining and has a top cast which also includes Angie Dickinson in the small role of the gangster's widow. In spite of the fact that he's playing a cold-blooded killer, Trantignant actually elicits a certain amount of audience sympathy and the mostly silent Scheider (who probably has five lines of dialog, total) is a hair-raising villain. Dickinson is appropriately shady and Engel at times very funny (and touching) as the victimized housewife. And then there's the eye-popping Ann-Margret, who I believe filmed this before her near-fatal Vegas accident: Her plunging neckline, blond wig and mini-dresses alone are worth the price of rental. Add at least two exciting extended chase sequences and a uniquely filmed shootout in a mortuary (where the mobster has been embalmed in a sitting position, cigar in hand) and you have a highly entertaining melodrama in which everyone eventually gets their comeuppance.

All-in-all, "The Outside Man" is a highly entertaining film lark from an era where films were actually distinguishable from each other, and didn't all look like yesterday's recycled trash. *** (out of *****)

French star Jean-Louis Trintignant ("The Great Silence") plays Lucien Bellon, a French hitman who comes to L. A. to assassinate American mobster Victor (Ted de Corsia, "The Killing"). But soon Lucien is dodging attempts on his *own* life, thanks to a *relentless* - if not that competent - American hitman, Lenny (Roy Scheider, "The French Connection"). The only help that Lucien really gets is from Nancy Robson (Ann-Margret, "Carnal Knowledge"), the boss at a topless bar.

Directed with a true European sensibility by Jacques Deray ("He Died with His Eyes Open"), "The Outside Man" a.k.a. "Un Homme Est Mort" is good fun for lovers of crime fiction. Deray makes it a hard-to-resist combination of an offbeat approach, some very amusing doses of comedy, interesting choices (the final gunfight takes place in a funeral home, where Victor has been embalmed in a sitting position), a fairly relaxed tone most of the time, and an unhurried pace. The funky score by Michel Legrand is a delight, as is the use of various L. A. locations.

Trintignant is very good in the lead, playing this "outsider" who's lost amidst Southern California culture of the period. Ann-Margret, looking very sexy in low-cut dresses, is enticing as his reluctant associate. Scheider is a hoot as the determined rival hitman. Georgia Engel ('The Mary Tyler Moore Show') is hilarious as a ditzy housewife. The eclectic supporting cast also includes the wonderful Angie Dickinson ("Big Bad Mama"), Felice Orlandi ("The Driver"), Carlo De Mejo ("The House by the Cemetery"), Michel Constantin ("Le Deuxieme Souffle"), Umberto Orsini ("Goodbye Emmanuelle"), Carmen Argenziano ("The Accused"), John Hillerman ("Blazing Saddles"), Jon Korkes ("Catch-22"), Playboy Playmate Connie Kreski ("The Black Bird"), Ben Piazza ("The Candy Snatchers"), Alex Rocco and Talia Shire from "The Godfather", and a very young Jackie Earle Haley ("Watchmen"), making his film debut.

Overall, this made for very agreeable entertainment; I didn't even really have a problem with the way it ended, although others may certainly feel differently.

Seven out of 10.

A French hitman, Jean Louis Trintigant, is hired to kill a Los Angeles mobster. After carrying out his assignment, the Frenchman becomes the hunted, with Detroit hitman, Roy Scheider relentlessly in pursuit. The cast is very game, and includes Ann Margaret, Angie Dickinson, Alex Rocco, and Talia Shire in a small role. Eventually things start to crystalize as to the "why", and the Frenchman begins to turn the tables. Jean Louis Trintigant takes some getting used to as the sort of anti hero. His performance is extremely low key, which tends to cause the story to lose momentum at times. Nevertheless, the unpredictable script, superb Los Angeles photography, and skilled acting keeps "The Outside Man" interesting. - MERK

I am so sorry for the ones who *just don't get it*. It's all time classics and true masterpiece.

The main, if not the only, novelty that "Un Homme Est Mort" / "Outside Man" has to offer is famous French actor Jean Louis Trintignant in an American (L. A., specifically) setting, interacting with American culture. Other than that, the story is strictly routine. If there is one other thing remarkable about this film, it's the veeeery low amount of dialogue; third-billed Roy Scheider must utter about 10 words in total during the entire running time. It's certainly scenic, but also generally lethargic, despite some brief outbursts of action. Ann Margret is a knockout, as always. **1/2 out of 4.

This had all the makings for a first rate international crime action drama. There is a good premise, of a hit-man agreeing to off a powerful crime boss to pay off a debt, only to discover it was a set-up with himself marked for death, a first-rate cast, a "Shaft"-inspired score by Oscar-winning composer Michel Legrand, and excellent location photography which captures the Los Angeles landscape. So why doesn't this film work? For one thing, it never settles on a tone, and it swerves between character study to crime drama and doesn't have enough of either. The character being studied is impossible to care about anyway, the crime aspects are never fully explored, and most the action scenes are mostly ordinary. Even the climactic shootout isn't all that exciting, in spite of happening in a clever location. The result is that the film is usually depressing. There are a few good scenes and the cast is more than up to the task. However, most of the actors are given little to do. In the lead, the great French actor Jean- Louis Trintignant does little more than glower or sulk, making this one of his less memorable performances. Ann Margaret is beautiful, but her role is merely set decoration. Georgia Engel steals the show as a ditsy housewife who innocently gets caught up in the double cross and violence, but she doesn't have that large of a role. The truth is, she's the only person who evokes any sympathy, with everyone else being either a vicious criminal, an inept cop, or an apathetic bystander. That wasn't an unusual situation in 1970's crime dramas, but it doesn't make for exciting viewing. Some people like this movie a lot, so if you're really interested, judge for yourself, but don't complain if you were also disappointed.

Being a native of Los Angeles, it's great a treat to see a overview of the city in 1973 supposedly from the plane to brings Trintignant. There are shots of "The Classic Cat", a club that no longer exists on Sunset Blvd. The chase scene filmed in Venice, CA, are also places that no longer exist as most of the development was still under construction. The music score is by Michel Legrand, whose "Umbrellas in Chernburg" is classic, here a little jarring, maybe intentional. Trintignant plays a hit man from France, who does commit cold blooded murder, so he's a bad guy. Roy Schneider, pre-Jaws, plays an even more gum chewing, sadistic killer after Trintignant.

Ann Magret, at this time, was having a difficult time having just recently lost her father in real life. She plays her part well, but it is unclear why her charactor would go out on a limb for Jean-Louis T., as his charactor treats her with sheer indifference. Angie Dickerson is a 70's babe that gives A.M. competition in the eye candy department.

The shoot out scene at the end of the movieis quite weird, the corpse in the funeral parlor displayed in a sitting position with cigar in hand and Trintigant's cohort being dragged by a hearse through the graveyard.

A 3 out of 5.

After a family tragedy, Jean-Louis Trintignant was invited by Jacques Deray to make this picture in America aiming for clear your mind aftermaths of sad happenings, actually his character wasn't a hitman properly, he just had debts on games at Paris and had to kill a great mobster at Los Angeles in exchange to be free doing this assignment, sadly after fulfilled his task another real hitman tries kill him before leaving Los Angeles.

Then came up the gorgeous Ann Margret a former owner of a burlesque night club to aid him got a passport to get back to Europe, he soon figures out that such returning won't ensure laissez-passer even in Paris, so he decides stay to settle the things chasing the mastermind that ordering his death.

It's criminally underrated by large majority at IMDB's members in so unusual French Polar, it's has enough action, chasing streets and mainly many twists on the clever plot, also to enhance the offering the producers exposing the sinful nightlife of California on those peppery burlesque environment, fantastic casting and mainly by the Ann-Margret's decollete as the whole shaped body, what a vision of heaven!!

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.

Not a bad film, but why is the dialogue dubbed? Why are English-speakers like Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret dubbed when they speak English? Why are the sounds of gunshots not synced with the visual of the gun firing?

Ann-Margaret acts well. There's an eerie quality when Trintignant says so little because he (the actor) doesn't speak English. The 1972 atmosphere of LA is good, dominated by cars, cars, cars, cars -- all of which were doomed by the imminent arrival of Toyota and Honda.

It's funny when Ann-Margaret snatches the parking ticket off her pink Thunderbird. Also when the black cars head slowly out for the funeral. Also the evangelizing hitch-hiker. But what the heck is the dead man doing mummified in the mortuary, sitting lifelike, with a cigar, when he's about to be put in a coffin? Bizarre, unexplained humor -- a good touch.

But why the dubbing?

The great chase on the VENICE AMUSEMENT PIER allows an old Santa Monica resident like myself to see the old pier before it was demolished. For years it sat, rusted, half standing due to fire and neglect. It was on the Santa Monica and venice border. It was broken into many times, as it was a good location to fish off of, or to go lurking, if one were into checking out what people enjoyed decades earlier. The Beach Boys played in the pink building you see in the film. The piers below, where you see Ann Margaret, you see those piers in THE DOORS video, THE UNKOWN SOLDIER. Also, this pier was used in the last episode of the 1960's TV action series, THE FUGITIVE. Richard Kimble tracked down and caught the 'one armed man' in that abandoned pier.

After reading the comments here I decided to go see this movie when it played at a revival house. Now that I have seen as much of "The Outside Man" as I could stomach, I'm baffled by these other responses.

What some film buffs will accept in the name of nostalgia for a "Lost LA" knows no bounds. If this movie were set in some other place, no one would ever give it his/her time. It is shot like a TV movie (I'm not entirely convinced that it was *not* a TV movie, given the number of TV actors who appear). It is very, very poorly written, acted, and directed. Shoddy, even. The dialogue is stiff, but not even stiff in a clipped, noirish way, or in a way that could provide camp value. The actors are so wooden that they often wait an extra beat and glance off camera before delivering their responses to one another. The editing is absurd.

The film boils down to a series of vignettes involving our alienated French hit-man encountering and negotiating "LA scenes"--the boring housewife, the biker gang, the jesus-freak, the 'tough' blonde hooker, etc. None of these scenes connects with any other in any significant way. They're all just slices of life in 'gritty' LA, but shot in such a fake way that there is nothing whatsoever of 'the real' about them.

Of course, I'm not really qualified to speak about the movie as a whole, because I walked out. I have now walked out of a grand total of 3 movies in my life. I felt so liberated when I left, though, that it almost made watching the first half an hour or 45 minutes worth it.

Perhaps for many people the nostalgia factor overrides these critiques. I understand nostalgia for old LA, too, but for a city that was in fact entirely different than the LA of today (such as the one portrayed in "Mildred Pierce," say). This movie, however, focuses on LA as a hip, modern city, with rivers of freeways and 6-lane boulevards swamped with traffic. How different this is from today's LA is unclear to me. Sure, one can look at this film and say, "Gee, I remember when that club was still open," or "Oh, I loved that old pier." But these feelings run entirely counter to what this film says about LA: that it doesn't care about people's sentimental attachments to particular places and things, so get out of the way or become part of the pavement.

Let's face it, post-1950 or so, LA became a city defined by rapid change, of plowing under the old so the young citizens of today can make their mark. (Of course, pockets of 'old LA' still remain, and always will; not everything can get plowed under as efficiently as late capitalism would like.) This notion of change defines LA. However, some people cling to nostalgia for a particular era, even if it runs counter to what LA was 30 years ago and is today. This is a typical American set of actions and sentiments: destroy what is in order to bring on something new; glorify this destruction and change while it's happening; regret that we have brought about this change once it has been effected; build monuments to that which we have destroyed; lovingly remember that which has passed because it seems to come from a more innocent time; rebuke ourselves for ever thinking that we should have destroyed what was; repeat.

I swear, in a few years people are going to be saying things like, "I really miss that pocked old parking lot that surrounded the Cinerama Dome."