Il Rapace

José Giovanni, famous for his adventure and crimi movies (Deux Hommes dans la Ville (1973)) is also a good script-writer (he wrote the script of Le Clan des Siciliens (1969)). This movie based on the novel by John Carrick, shows us the killer Le Rital (Lino Ventura) who has to kill the president of a South-American country. He received his mission by a lawyer, a certain Chavez. His commissioners all look to be partisans for the revolution but Le Rital is not trusting anyone and after the cold-blooded murder of the president he will have a lot of trouble to fly out of the country. His dialogues with an idealistic revolutionary, Chico, are interesting because they determine the motivation for each one to commit this murder. Le Rital says: "with this money I can have any woman I want". At another occasion he prohibits Chico to follow him, saying: "I will end up at the end of a rope". At the end we are not sure of what is going to happen at last: will he be shot by the troops of general Alguirez? The action in the movie is quite realistic but one has to bee a good shooter to kill a moving person at more than two hundred yards. Le Rital is a professional and he and his rifle are one, he is the man who never misses. Lino Ventura is the right cast for this somewhat underestimated movie.