I discovered Ennio Morricone’s main theme for Le Marginal (1982) recently on a Best Of – that piece of music is awesome, with its disco-bass and dramatic strings. So I thought I’d track down and watch the movie it belonged to, a French super-cop crime thriller in the tradition of Bullitt, Dirty Harry, every cop movie ever, etc. A box office hit for its star, Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a leather-jacketed, tight-jeans-wearing officer who can’t sit behind a desk but has to hit the streets and fight crime – if a drug boat is heading towards international waters, he’s there with a helicopter to jump from. Belmondo is playfully charismatic but it’s also a little bit of an ego-fest – he wins every fight, and attracts every lady around (including his then girlfriend in real life, Carlos Sotto Mayor who plays a sex worker who falls in love with him). Henry Silva is the bad guy mobster (naturally), a young Tchéky Karyo (bad guy from Bad Boys) is also in the cast, and there’s a variation of Chekhov’s Law – if you introduce a bullet-proof armoured sports car in the first act…, etc. Anyway, this was standard cop fare, but entertainingly cliche and with that Morricone theme, and early 80s French vibe, it’s got style too. That and Belmondo running around in jeans.
VHS Tracking 