That Man From Rio

"What an adventure!"

That Man From Rio

1964

110 minutes

Directed by Philippe de Broca and Jean-Paul Rappeneau

Written by Philippe de Broca 

Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Francoise Dorleac, Jean Servais, Adolfo Celi

The immaculate manliness of Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of French cinema's greatest delights. With his shirt unbuttoned far below the GQ-approved second button, and the gradual accumulation of dirt and blood stylishly staining his slim white pants, he walks, talks, and seduces with swagger and masculine grace. He's a Francophile's Bogart, but with better taste in loafers.

He also takes a punch like a champ and runs marathons in formal attire in That Man From Rio, a light-hearted send-up of early spy flicks. If the movie were to be remade today (please, no), Tom Cruise would have to play Belmondo's character. No one else can do that much running.

Writer/co-director Philippe de Broca harness Belmondo's scruffy sex appeal and uses it to mock the typical manly Hollywood hero. Belmondo plays Adrien, a French soldier on leave who gets swept up into a plotless adventure of esponage, foreign intrigue, monetary greed, and thrilling sexism. Adrien is a sort of reimagination of his ill-fated character from Breathless: he's seductive and caddish in equal measure, and possesses MacGyver-like ingenuity, but Belmondo plays the part with an indiscernible grin and wink, his knowingly straight-faced turn more akin to Sterling Archer than James Bond. However, Belmondo and de broca play it so straight-faced the ridiculousness, intended as spoof, comes off like another '60s adventure flick, albeit one that's exceptionally well-made. They never quite take it far enough. 

The plot is inconsequential, of course: A priceless statuette is stolen from a musuem by a less-than-sneaky crook; soon thereafter Adrien's "friend" Agnes (Francoise Dorleac) and her mentor Professor Norbert Catalan (Jean Servais) are both kidnapped by the same less-than-sneaky crook, now accompanied by an equally uncouth partner. A detective with an apparent lack of culture briefly investigates the matter, but is quickly forgotten when Adrien jumps on a motorcycle (the first, and least absurd of the many vehicles he comandeers during the film) and chases Agnes to Brazil.

De Broca dexterously combines New Wave formalism--well-placed jump cuts, keen sound editing--with Golden Era adventure nonsense. The stunts are often spectacular (I'm not sure if Belmondo did his own stunts, but it certainly appears that he did, at least some of them). Belmondo has sharp comedic timing, as when he's giving a farcical story about how he kidnapped the Professor, only to see the crooks snag Agnes off the street, and he abruptly says, without missing a beat, "Oh shit! They're kidnapping Agnes!" Then he jumps out the window and chases them.

Dorleac fairs less well. Though she radiates charisma and does an admirable job with the skimpy material she's given, her role essential requires her to look hot (which she does well) and be stupid (which she also does well). The whole film is steeped in testosterone, though it's certanily aware of its own macho bull-headedness. The misogyny comes early and easily, as Adrien tells his buddy Lebel that he'll knock Agnes around if she's been messin' with any other men; Belmondo (or, as I like to say, Bel-Man-do) keeps up the manly facade throughout the rest of the film. He handles the increasingly silly situations deftly and calmly, while always looking just disheveled enough to be sexy (he's a stylish fucker for sure). Agnes, however, is essentially useless, seemingly competent at only two things: loving men and being rescued by men. And she even manages to fuck up the latter. Adrien's not a bad guy, and he's astonishingly thrifty, like a French progenitor of Indiana Jones' casual kind of hero, but I don't understand why he goes to so much trouble to save Agnes. I get that it's supposed to be farical James Bond (Adolfo Celi would go one to appear as a key villain in Thunderball), but the farce isn't so convincing. It's never ridiculous enough to be satire. More often it's just sexist enough to be banal, what I call Casual Sexism, the kind that society just accepts as quotidian, which makes it even more uncomfortable. 

"A woman should wait for you at home," Adrien muses to a young boy who briefly becomes his sidekick (think of a less annoying Short Round, and better-dressed). "She should play the piano, or the harp. Agnes can't even boil an egg, and I'm traveling across the world to save her." If the pervasive sexism is supposed to be satirical, and I have a hunch it is, it's not wholly effective. Though it's still more effective than anything the Emmys have attempted thus far.

That Man From Rio gets three-and-a-half shirtless Jean-Paul Belmondos out of five.