''Le Marginal'' is a 1983 French crime film directed by

Jacques Deray Jacques Deray (born Jacques Desrayaud; 19 February 1929 – 9 August 2003) was a French film director and screenwriter. Deray is prominently known for directing many crime and thriller films. Biography Born Jacques Desrayaud in Lyon, France, in ...

and starring

Jean-Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (; 9 April 19336 September 2021) was a French actor and producer. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits ...

. The music for the film was composed by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classic ...

Plot

Policeman Philippe Jordan works in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

. He intercepts the delivery of a shipload of heroin by jumping out of a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...

onto a speedboat and throws all drugs into the sea.

Drug lord A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin or narcotrafficker is a high-ranking crime boss who controls a sizable network of people involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly ...

Mecacci is desperate to get rid of Jordan and arranges an incident which leads to Jordan's disciplinary transfer. Jordan continues to fight against the

drug cartel A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when th ...

after all. He finds a valuable witness named "Freddy, the chemist" but Mecacci has Freddy killed before he can testify. When Mecacci's henchmen also murder Jordan's old friend Francis Pierron, Jordan retaliates immediately. Now Mecacci tries to lure him into a deadly trap. After Jordan has outsmarted Mecacci's killers he confronts their boss. The time for the final showdown has come.

Cast

as Philippe Jordan *

Henry Silva Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022) was an American actor. A prolific character actor, Silva was a regular staple of international genre cinema, usually playing criminals or gangsters. His notable film appearances include ...

as Sauveur Mecacci * Carlos Sotto Mayor as Livia Maria Dolores *

Pierre Vernier Pierre Vernier (19 August 1580 at Ornans, Franche-Comté (at that time ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs, now part of France) – 14 September 1637, same location) was a French mathematician and instrument-inventor. He was the inventor and epo ...

as Inspector Rojinski *

Maurice Barrier Maurice Barrier (8 June 1932 – 12 April 2020) was a French actor and singer. Biography Barrier was the son of a cabinetmaker, and had his first job working in his father's workshop. While in Rennes at age 28, he met several resident actors at t ...

as Tonton * as Antonio Baldi * Tchéky Karyo as Francis Pierron *

Michel Robin Michel Robin (13 November 1930 – 18 November 2020) was a French film, stage, and television actor. A sociétaire of the Comédie-Française since 1996, he also appeared in 120 films from 1966 to 2018. He won several awards for his acting, ...

as Alfred Gonet *

Jean-Claude Dreyfus Jean-Claude Dreyfus (born 18 February 1946, in Paris) is a French actor, comedian, and author. He began his career in film acting in 1973 in the film '' Comment réussir quand on est con et pleurnichard''. Dreyfus is notable for his portrayal ...

as The transvestite

Reception

"Le Marginal" was described as a "typical Jean-Paul Belmondo vehicle". With 4,956,922 tickets sold, it was the third most watched feature film in France in 1983.

References

External links

*
''Le Marginal''
at Le Film Guide

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marginal 1983 films 1980s crime action films 1980s action thriller films 1983 crime thriller films French crime action films French action thriller films French crime thriller films Films directed by Jacques Deray Films set in Marseille Films about organized crime in France Films about the illegal drug trade Films with screenplays by Michel Audiard 1980s French-language films 1980s French films