The Outside Man (1972)

Original title: Un Homme est Mort

Director: Jacques Deray

Writers: Jean-Claude Carriere, Jacques Deray, Ian McLellan Hunter

Composer: Michel Legrand

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ann-Margret, Roy Scheider, Angie Dickinson, Georgia Engel, Felice Orlandi, Carlo De Mejo, Michel Constantin, Umberto Orsini, Carmen Argenziano, Jackie Earle Haley, John Hillerman, Alex Rocco, Talia Shire

More info: IMDb

Tagline: If you kill the most powerful man in organized crime, they've got the rest of your life to get you.

Plot: French assassin Lucien Bellon is hired to kill an L.A. mob boss. After the job is done it seems someone has been hired to erase him and he's suddenly left stranded in the U.S. without a passport and with very few friends.  Bellon is forced to fight back.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

OMFG what a great flick!

Have you ever wanted to see:

Roy Scheider play a cold, ruthless, man of few words killer?

Angie Dickinson really tan?

OK, how about Ann-Margret really tan?  I thought so.

Los Angeles from an outsider's point of view as filthy, run down town except for where the super rich live?

I just watched this and I'm tickled to death at how much I loved it.  It's pictures like this one that get me excited about watching movies.  You go through a lot of bad and mediocre films and then out of nowhere something like this pops up and restores your faith in the industry.  The cast is great except for Umberto Orsini who plays Alex, the son of the murdered mob boss.  Now it could be that he was dubbed and the voice actor was having a bad day but the scene between him and the detective, who has pretty much pieced together what's really been going on, is pretty bad.  But that's the only moment in the entire picture that suffers.  It's got a European flair to it so it's easy to forgive.  Plus the rest of the picture is top drawer gritty crime stuff.  Roy Scheider is friggin' awesome.  Hell, the cast is great almost all around (except for Orsini's moment of excess).  There's lots of action, tension, intrigue and the ending is really cool and 70s cynical.