Three Men to Destroy (1980)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Disappointment for a huge fan!

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

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.

Ultimately this is surely much ado about nothing but Delon is great, Dalila Di Lazzaro plays his girlfriend and if she doesn't smoulder quite as she does in 1977s, 'The Pyjama Girl Case, she certainly does well enough to hold one's attention. Indeed, I found this likable from the very start, as we struggle to work out what is going on, only to eventually discover that most of those in the film are similarly confused. The Gaullist figure at the centre of things, who is probably more confused and deluded than anyone else, is great fun and although this tough, sexy, thriller is by no means a comedy, there are some nice touches that raise at least a smile. Always involving, ever moving with some excellent sequences, this keeps you guessing till the end.

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.

A better- than- routine French crime flick, with Alain Delon as "the wrong man in the wrong place" getting accidentally mixed up with arms dealers. Typically convincing effort from Delon, nice pessimistic atmosphere and strangely surprising ending make this one a treat for eurocrimi fans.Includes some brief nudity and "unnecessarily" graphic violence for the viewers pleasure, too. Not a masterpiece, but entertaining, nevertheless...Released on video in Finland in the early eighties.