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.

This movie inspired the less successful "Buddy Buddy" which starred the Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon team. However, the original is better for many reasons here.Hit-man comes to Montpellier, France to recoup a failed assassination attempt of a witness about to tell all about the Mob. However, a depressed businessman who is about to lose his wife gets in the way, and trouble ensues...Great rendering by the late actor Lino Ventura (who did tough guys role throughout his career and had a fan base in Quebec, shot a couple of movies in Montreal...) and late poet/singer/actor Jacques Brel as the depressed Francois Pignon (who is a staple character to Francis Veber's many scripts, if we can remember "Le Diner De Cons" and other movies).Well written and real twists along the way. No matter this hit-man called this guy "annoying" (translated from the title in slang French: "L'Emmerdeur"). But this original still prevails from the failed remakes that followed (to all due respect to the original "Odd Couple" of Matthau and Lemmon).

At last this standout has been issued on DVD which is promoting it as the film that introduced the world to Francois Pignon. Perhaps not uncoincidentally the DVD appears at a time when screenwriter Francis Veber has adapted his screenplay - he wasn't yet directing - for the stage with Richard Berry as Ralf Milan and Patrick Timsit as the eponymous pain in the ass. In an interview printed in the program for the play Veber speculates on why Billy Wilder's remake, Buddy, Buddy, was so disappointing; Veber suggests that Walter Matthau had such a backlog of outstanding comedy roles behind him that it was difficult to accept him as a dispassionate hit-man. There's probably something in what Veber says because the opposite is true of Lino Ventura who LOOKS dangerous and had an equally impressive backlog as a gangster in French polars. One early scene illustrates this perfectly; driving to his assignment he stops in a diner and inadvertently parks in front of a large camion. When the trucker, a big guy, gets ready to leave he lets out a squawk when he is unable to get out. The counterman taps Ventura as the culprit and suggests he move his car but quick. 'I'm finishing my coffee' he says quietly, the juggernaut jockey springs forward to confront him face to face. 'I'm finishing my coffee' says Ventura just as quietly and just as menacingly and the big guy backs down. It's difficult to imagine Matthau being as effective as that, Lee Marvin, no problem. The plot obeys all the rules of farce in which one person or even a group of people have a deadly serious objective and are single minded in trying to achieve it whilst a chain of unconnected events spin out of control around them preventing the task from being accomplished. Milan has been hired by the mob to take out a witness when he is brought into the court at exactly two.p.m. and he clings to that objective tenaciously despite the chaos surrounding him initiated by Francois Pignon, Jacques Brel. Veber's screenplay is so tightly constructed that it hardly matters that Jacques Brel is to acting what Jim Carrey is to Greek Tragedy. Veber's masterstroke is to delay the revelation that this is a farce by spending a whole reel establishing a polar and only gradually permitting his real intention to become evident. Even after twenty years it still comes up fresh.

This is one of those films that is so funny, it makes you (well me anyway) smile just to remember it.The essential storyline is of a professional hitman and a guy that he finds he can not get rid of. (The English translation of the title is pain-in-the-behind.)This is black comedy done to perfection with a brilliant gradual build-up. It starts straight-faced so, if you do not know what you are watching, it could be any old thriller. Gradually the gags come in until it reaches a manic pace.The two stars are the completely deadpan Lino Ventura and the songwriter Jacques Brel.It is sadly under-rated and hard-to-find. Seek it out!

This film essentially is a study of characters between a loser (Jacques Brel) and a hit man (Lino Ventura).This film, like many French comedies, has a Hollywood counterpart, "Buddy Buddy", with Walther Mathau and Jack Lemmon. Although not bad, the remake is nevertheless deceptive, as we were expecting much more from a movie in which the two principal characters are played by such great actors.