- Actors: Jean Rochefort, Marie Trintignant, Guillaume Depardieu, Patachou, Wladimir Yordanoff
- Directors: Pierre Salvadori
- Writers: Pierre Salvadori
- Producers: Gérard Louvin, Philippe Martin
- Language French
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Tartan
- VHS Release Date: 1 May 1995
- Run Time: 87 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CPKE
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 14,102 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The first and the best,
This review is from: Wild Target [DVD] [1992] (DVD)
Professional assassin Victor Maynard (a wonderfully understated performance by Jean Rochefort) leads a socially awkward life of order; he has no lover or pet to interfere with the way he likes things: manicured, sterile, colourless, emotionless. The ingredients for his dinner, the cheese he buys ("Today is Wednesday - I get St Nectaire on Wednesday") and his suit of clothes are organised according to the day of the week. He plucks his moustache and covers his furniture with plastic. He is mannered, discreet and boring. The film begins when Victor kills a target then gives the victim's pet bird to his elderly mother who lives in a retirement home. Victor may be a killer, but he believes in perfect order: mannered and meticulous in his speech and appearance, even as he matter-of-factly discusses his latest hit with his mother, who nags him about remaining married at 55 without a son to pass on the family legacy. He takes pride in his work and is well paid. But all of a sudden, something is different - he spared the parrot because it squawked "Je t'aime" when he aimed a gun at it - then, rather than kill Antoine (Depardieu), a young messenger who witnesses his next murder, Victor takes him on as a protoge'. Even though it soon becomes apparent that his apprentice does not have the "killer instinct", Victor grows fond of Antoine and treats him like a son.
Victor is then sent to dispose of Renee (Trintignant), a pretty thief and con woman who switches a fake painting for the real thing and in the process swindles the buyer. Together, Victor and Antoine follow Renee as she walks briskly through the market, stealing and pickpocketing along the way. After dodging Victor's bullet she manages to elude her pursuers, who eventually catch up with her when she checks into a small hotel for the night. Victor is mesmerised by the woman and starts losing his grip; he has a clear shot with his sniper's rifle from a rooftop opposite her hotel room but hesitates. In the morning, Victor and Antoine chase Renee into an enclosed parking lot. Victor raises his pistol but hesitates again, only this time, the vengeful art buyer has sent one of his goons to finish the job. Victor shoots his rival assassin instead, and the real chase begins. Through his young charges, Victor finds a very different kind of adventure, and has a hard time reconciling his old, lonely, ordered life with the new. But he can never escape his past; it's inherited through blood. "Wild Target" hits the mark again and again in understated, almost romantic black comedy. The acting is all good but Rochefort is very much the star.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heard the one about the hitman, his apprentice, the target he can't bring himself to kill and his homicidal mother?,
By
This review is from: Wild Target [DVD] [1992] (DVD)
Recently remade as a British comedy with the somewhat unlikely lineup of Bill Nighy, Rupert Grint and Emily Blunt replacing Jean Rochefort, Guillaume Depardieu and Marie Trintignant, 1992's Wild Target is a wonderfully dry and understated black comedy of murders that at once feels like great raw material for an English-language version and something that few directors could successfully catch the tone of. The jokes are there to be discovered, never bringing attention to themselves or hitting you over the head with obvious staging, which makes it all the funnier. Jean Rochefort is the top hitman in the business who suddenly finds himself going through a late-life crisis after not only sparing witness Guillaume Depardieu's life but taking him on as his apprentice - no health benefits but free bed and board and a three-zone Paris travelcard - and suddenly finding himself jinxed. Worse than that, he ends up protecting Marie Trintignant's conwoman who he's been hired to kill: well, he's a killer, she's a thief, so in principle at least they're perfect for each other. Soon all three are playing surrogate mismatched families in hiding from his disappointed employer - he's not a gangster but he did work in real estate for ten years and will stop at nothing - who sets the second best hitman in the business after him ("In our business, we are the two most expensive." "No, he's a bit more expensive than you."). This somewhat crestfallen rival ("Ah, you're the one who gets the jobs I'm not interested in") is a mirror image of Rochefort: not only does he have a none-too-bright apprentice of his own but his character name is even an anagram of Rochefort's.
Pierre Salvadori shows a deft touch, throwing in sly spins on genre staples like the mechanics of paying hitmen half in advance and incorporating jokes into the equally sly production design - Rochefort's family home is filled with portraits of famous deaths, assassinations and handguns while even the childhood mobile above his bed is made up of miniature murder weapons. Then there's his homicidal mamman, who keeps a scrapbook of his greatest hits and knocks off the staff at her old folks home... It doesn't quite know how to end, running into a bit of turbulence in the finale before coming in for a smooth landing, but it's still one of Rochefort's finest hour-and-a-halfs, and his two ill-fated co-stars manage to more than hold their own as well (Trintignant died as a result of a head wound sustained in a fight with her boyfriend and Depardieu died of pneumonia after having his leg amputated). You may have to pay attention to get the most out of it, but it rewards the effort with a surprisingly delightful film. For years the film has been out of circulation in an English-friendly version, but Arrow's extras-free UK PAL DVD offers a fine widescreen transfer with English subtitles and is well worth tracking down.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The original and best,
By
This review is from: Wild Target [DVD] [1992] (DVD)
Released on DVD for the first time, no doubt to cash in on the imminent British remake with Bill Nighy, Rupert Grint et al, this is a minor classic. It follows a familiar(-ish) plotline: hitman falls for his target and turns protector, but played as a very funny farce with some great acting, especially from Jean Rochefort.
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