One of the rare instances when the music composer is the hero. This is Morricone's film. his famous tune "Chi Mai" is played in many scenes and it lifts many ordinary ones to another level.On the surface, the film is like a tongue in cheek revenge drama. Belmondo plays a French Rambo who is sent to an African nation to assassinate its leader. But he is hung out to dry by the French intelligence services and is jailed following a public trial. After a dramatic escape from an African slave camp, Belmondo returns to France to take revenge on the people who betrayed him.But if you look closely, the film is an odd mix of many genres. It is not just an action film. Sure, there is a spaghetti western style shoot out, a pulsating car chase and some seriously violent action. The women are all objects of sex who want to sleep with Belmondo or get coffee for the superiors. But it is also a satire about the incompetence of French intelligence agencies and how the leaders of first world countries and third world countries are in bed with each other. At one point, a French intelligence agent remarks irritably about a countryside mansion (where an African leader and his prostitute are residing) - "Why are we deploying such a large police force to protect this whorehouse?" The gritty and violent beginning in Africa, is at odds with Belmondo's adventures in France. It is not a bad film. I'm sure there is a context which I don't really get because I'm no expert on French politics and foreign policy.Belmondo is awesome. He must have been pretty old when he made this, but he was really pumped up. The women are all nice eye candy. There is even a lesbian torturer who tries to move in on Belmondo's wife only to get a karate chop on her neck.But like I said at the beginning, the real hero of this film is good old Ennio.

At first impressed with the beginning, the effects at that time was impressed. But in the film there is nothing remarkable, perhaps for that hour he was something high and stood out, but looking now - he looks stupid and mediocre, then how they presented the agents and their secrets, where there is nothing secret anymore for the secondary people, funny that they all know (agent's wife etc) or for Agents (the murder of the president is probably already known to the neighbor), and the agents, if I can write like that, are somehow distracted and not professionals at all. Children's playground, where the main character even pistol can not directly hold, when aiming at a person. But let's start in chronology. Here's the court, how stupid the secret agent there falls and loses consciousness. From what? The viewer is at a loss. Prison, it's even more stupid to look for their escape, and why soldiers are so dangerous, they started shooting at poor people, and the agent found his weapon in the hut of some one, only you sit and guess, thinking that the director is brilliant and the agent is prudent, but that's far from it. And the blood - there is a funny ketchup. And then he came back, and there is a question, he seems to be already a terrorist, well, yes, he is a professional, there's nothing to say, he came and sends telegrams and "agents" decodes them on their 80' Enigma. And everyone is so worried, so only the viewer does not, tales are told of him as about Tarzan, and he is throwing alarm clocks. By the way in the movie there are a lot of blunders and dialogues where they say one thing, but on the screen you see another. The scene with his wife is also interesting when she is interrogated in a dressing-gown and like a stupid prostitute (not to mention the woman-agent who says nothing to her and nonsense) and take off her clothes, and she not to resist and runs naked to the detective and without covering himself tells him something, I laughed, as if she has not noticed that ripped off her robe. Already try to think that there cuted a bed scene. Yes, and the fake arrival ( I know it is fake, but it fake twice already) of this president, you begin to doubt as well as about the country and the seriousness of everything, came himself, and against the backdrop of some anthem, but in fact no one is playing. A prostitute there certainly does not matter. Ass maybe is good. The setting of battles is continuous caressing the cheek and pretending. Not serious, for example lets look at the same Bond, where Daniel Craig, where is the pro-agent, seriousness, cold mind, tacting. This is not a comedy or it is, professionnel? Throughout the film, it was not clear the motives of the professional agent. By the way everything ends also stupidly, he try to something proved or what, he put in a bad situation the special services, and if he proved something, he did not prove anything, only played the role of a victim. Music, more precisely one track of Morricone, only matters, and while constantly being set in scenes where it does not fit, a lot of this music, the music is good and without the film. I do not know how and why the film is so admired, and who benefited from it, it was untwisted and there is nothing in it. Bloated. Yes, I understand the stupid government that gives such orders, and throws a person because of its debility, but in the end everything will be thrown on him, they are already lifeless. A good plan here, hatred of such a government and agents, injustice and the fact that it was thrown out, every living person wants justice and even more so when he did a lot, but then how they shot the film and added the production and dialogues is ugly and boring. Imagine if you did not look for presentation the film so much and don't know this weird actor, because there are many others about hatred, rationality and much more reasonable. It is some parallel reality about agents and other stuff that no place in real and that only wash brain and some time and after so what, what it proofs or giving.

What should have been just another spy/revenge B-movie ends up being one of the most memorable French films in my book. Sure, similar modern thrillers from Hollywood (e.g., Bourne franchise) may be more sophisticated plots, more intense chase scenes, camera angles, elaborated combat but ... who cares? A few months later, I can barely remember what those movies were about, let alone specific scenes. And yet, I just cannot get enough of Belmondo as The Professional. This movie hits me emotionally again and again, no matter how many times I watch it. It's charming, often funny, and ultimately, profoundly sad. If you've never heard of Belmondo, who by the way, is one of French cinema's national treasures, this is a great one to start with. A true classic!

He's tough, he's smart, he's funny, he's a French version of James Bond. Just don't get me wrong, this is not some sort of cheep imitation of James Bond. I think at that time this movie was kinda original and the plot-line is not similar with James Bond movies, only Jean-Paul Belmondo's character is similar with James Bond. Nowadays the plot may not appear so original, because a lot of similar movies were made after that (Born trilogy would be a good example), but still it's interesting too watch. The action was good. There were few great fighting scenes and one pretty impressive car chase scene. What else did I liked was the methods of police (who were the main villains) and how coldblooded and sadistic they were. I liked the standoff between Josselin Beaumont and Rosen made in western style, that was a very cleverly made in my opinion.