In short: The Shock (1982)

Original title: Le choc

An aging hitman named Christian, who is often going by the alias of Martin Terrier (Alain Delon) rather suddenly decides to retire, and take the payment for the last job he refuses to do as his retirement bonus. Not surprisingly, his former employers are less than happy with his behaviour, trying to get their money back and perhaps retire him more permanently.

So our protagonist decides to lay low on a turkey farm his business manager bought for him, because clearly, nobody’s going to look for him at a place of business he actually owns under his most common alias. The farm is worked by Claire (Catherine Deneuve) and her completely crazy husband Félix (Philippe Léotard). This being a Delon/Deneuve vehicle, the two fall for one another so quickly, they’re banging on the very first night. Possibly for reasons of narrative economy, for hours later, a trio of German terrorists arrive who are very pissed about that time when Christian murdered their boss. Further improbable plot developments follow.

Alain Delon is one of those actors who, once they spent a certain amount of time being stars, suddenly started to believe they were great at every other element of the filmmaking art as well. Producing, writing, directing, while prancing in front of the camera are all in a day’s work for the type, and nobody’s going to tell them they aren’t actually any good at most of these things. And where they once worked under great directors, those are now chosen by their amiability towards the egotistical actor’s every whim.

Which naturally leads us to this very peculiar adaptation of a Manchette novel, co-written by Alain Delon, most probably co-directed by Delon, though credited to Robin Davis, of course starring Alain Delon. It’s about the train wreck you’d expect, with an aging star who often steps over the wrong side of the line dividing his standard icy coldness and just looking bored, a script that uses standard genre tropes badly to excuse a one damn thing after another plot, and direction that seems mostly fixated on making Delon look good in every single scene, even if that’s to the detriment of the film (or even just the scene) as a whole.

The film’s saving grace is its tendency to add the goofiest and most bizarre flourishes to standard thriller scenes. The film is full of strange decisions, elements that seem to belong in a Roger Moore Bond movie (just take the overweight killer lady or the insane ranting of Félix) but don’t seem to be meant as jokes, and plotting so threadbare and illogical, the whole thing becomes actually rather fascinating, and certainly never boring.