Belmondo Double Feature: ‘The Vultures’ And ‘A Man Named Rocca’

If you don’t know who Jean-Paul Belmondo is, here’s a chance to correct that with this French double feature:

Henri Verneuil‘s The Vultures (1983)

There are days where I spend way too long fretting over whether to blind buy a movie or not. The Vultures is a film that would’ve normally never grabbed my attention at all going by the cover art (which reads very Sylvester Stallone/Arnold Schwarzenegger/Bruce Willis coded).

Luckily, I have a pick-up any movie I haven’t seen starring Belmondo policy, and that came through big time with this film, which looks like it’s going to be a macho wartime movie but is actually about as unpatriotic as it gets: every man for themselves, Dog Day Afternoon in Africa. 

That last part especially came as a surprise, but while this film does indeed start out with a lot of explosions (enough, in fact, to take out most of the French soldiers in Belmondo’s troop), from there it becomes less about fighting the Germans and more about Belmondo’s Sergeant Augagneur trying to stage a coup. Basically, their original mission was to transport over a million dollars’ worth in gold bars from an African bank (because what’s a little colonialism between soldiers?) to the French front. Augagneur is now of the opinion that there’s no reason why they shouldn’t take the gold bars for themselves and is able to recruit a few soldiers (Michel Creton and Jacques Villeret) to split the takings. 

Knowing Belmondo’s reputation as a major French film star (see clips from his funeral if you have any doubts), it feels particularly wild seeing him play someone so disloyal to his country. This is a film about greedy people who make no apologies for their behavior (Marie Laforêt is equally moral-less as the film’s main female character), and while an argument could be made that it goes on a tad too long, with the right mindset (I was particularly in the mood for a film where I could turn my brain off and see some action), this film delivers in spades.

Kino’s Blu-ray comes with a commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Howard S. Berger, who compare Belmondo’s career with Tom Cruise‘s and Steve McQueen‘s. Charles Bronson and Alain Delon also come up, but it’s pretty much required that Delon be mentioned in relation to Belmondo and vice versa. Mitchell and Berger also discuss Belmondo’s stunt work in The Night Caller, and I’d love to see Kino release that film with English subtitles next.

Jean Becker’s A Man Named Rocca (1961)

Turning back time to the beginning of Belmondo’s career, A Man Named Rocca couldn’t be more different from The Vultures but is a fantastic film about male friendship that I can pretty much guarantee wasn’t intended as a gay love story. That doesn’t mean you can’t view it through that lens today, however, and it’s fascinating if you do. Mystery writer Max Allan Collins and podcaster Heath Holland cover this in their commentary, but A Man Named Rocca is a film with some severe tone changes. It begins with Rocca (Belmondo) being told that his friend, Xavier (Pierre Vaneck), is being tried for a murder he didn’t commit. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t killed before (and he definitely has a temper), but for some reason Rocca is able to drop everything to try and clear his friend’s name. Somehow that involves infiltrating the mob (Collins and Holland conjecture that maybe Rocca was a retired gangster before the events of this movie but, as is the beauty of French films, his backstory’s never spelt out). At some point this movie switches over to The Hurt Locker territory. I know that twist needs explaining, but it’s better left a surprise. 

Belmondo and Vaneck are able to evoke a lot without saying a word, and there’s room for multiple interpretations. Collins and Holland are on it when it comes to calling out details. I was similarly intrigued by a moment where Belmondo trips on a tree branch, but I had missed an earlier scene where another character trips, making this a trend. Other ideas covered in their commentary include the western gunslinger vibes the film initially gives off and existentialism (which probably explains why this film went over so well with me). They level some fair critiques at the film, but I would highly recommend it (and I know gossip can be unfair, but I had no idea the main female actress, Christine Kaufmann, had been married to Tony Curtis, and that leads to some interesting/concerning background information).

The Vultures and A Man Named Rocca are available on Blu-ray now from Kino Lorber.