The Gripper (1976)

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Movie
German title The gripper
Original title L'Alpagueur
The greifer.svg
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1976
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Philippe Labro
script Jacques Lanzmann
production Alain Belmondo
music Michel Colombier
camera Jean Penzer
cut Jean Ravel
occupation

The gripper (original title L'Alpagueur ) is a French action film directed by Philippe Labro with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the leading role. The world premiere took place on March 7, 1976, and the film premiered in the Federal Republic of Germany on April 2, 1976.

action

Roger Pilard, known as "The Gripper", is a former big game hunter who is used by the police as a specialist in precarious and not entirely legal cases. For this purpose, he is given false identities by an unspecified secret organization and paid from the illegal income from his actions.

After the grabber blew up a drug delivery facility in Rotterdam, he was given the job of hiding a corrupt police chief, disguised as a businessman. In the meantime, the opponent of the claw, called "The Beast", is introduced in a second storyline. This criminal serial offender, who has meanwhile become feared by the public, attracts attention because he carries out robberies on banks and jewelers with extreme brutality. As accomplices, he selects young men from the petty criminal milieu, whom he wins for his own purposes with money or other "rewards" such as a motorcycle.

After a successful coup, the beast regularly kills both the accomplice as well as the attacked and any other witnesses, which is why nothing is known about his person and the police are not getting any further in their investigations. So the beast also convinces the young Costa Valdez to raid a jewelry store together. They kill its owner and two police officers who have rushed over. With luck, Costa escapes the beast's deadly approach, as the beast believes that it has shot him too and must flee from the approaching police. Costa is arrested, but remains silent about everything.

The grabber is smuggled into the prison in which Costa is imprisoned to hear him out about the beast, and since he impresses him, Costa begins to chat. His cause is vengeance, and he confides in the grabber. An escape organization in the prison escapes the Griffin and Costa. Unsuspecting, the grabber's contact paid for the escape with drug money from the Rotterdam coup, which the gang leader Spitzer had marked. Spitzer is also behind the Rotterdam drug gang and is also the source of the outbreak organization. When the gripper locates Spitzer's hiding place and almost perishes in the process, Costa flees with Doumeq's car, believing the gripper is dead. He has recognized the beast who once took him home as a homosexual acquaintance, and now he wants to go to her house and kill it on his own.

The beast, who works as a steward for an airline, surprises Costa in the basement of the house, shoots him and leaves the scene. When the gripper arrives there, he finds Costa dead, but can reveal the identity of the beast, as can only be seen in the final sequence of the film. He starts a trip in first class on board a scheduled flight on which the beast is employed as a steward. A fight ensues in which the beast's claw rams a broken bottle into the belly.

Reviews

"The character drawing is very superficial, sensational crime film with unnecessary hardship."

- Lexicon of international film

"Dark thriller about a mysterious loner who is only obliged to his own morals."

- Cinema

“Belmondo is the ideal cast as a lonely, unapproachable lone warrior with cold passion. [...] Philippe Labro shot this tough action cracker, which should not be confused with the two Hans Albers films of the same name. "

- prism

style

The gripper is a typical French action film of the 1970s that is very much tailored to its protagonist Belmondo. His opponent, however, is an almost comparably strong figure who, in the black and white scheme, represents the exact opposite of the “hero” who, despite illegal methods, is committed to a good cause. Although the action scenes such as the raids of the beast or the breakout of prison only require a moderate amount of material and although the showdown at the end is actually foreseeable from the outset, an almost continuous high tension is generated, which only discharges in the final scene, in which, for the only time, " Good ”and“ bad ”clash for just a few seconds. The whole thing is accompanied by tension-laden music by Michel Colombier, who assigns both the gripper and the beast, each of whom act ice-cold in their own way, their own sound, which changes back and forth between the storylines. The film's sometimes strong brutality, the sometimes too extensive subplots as well as the relatively short ending, in which the gripper wins, but it remains unclear whether the beast was killed or not, was criticized.

additional

Scenes of the film were u. a. shot on the casino ship Lydia .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the gripper . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2004 (PDF; test number: 48 146 DVD).
  2. ↑ Release info according to IMDb
  3. ↑ The gripper. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ film review on cinema.de
  5. ↑ Film review on prisma.de
  6. ↑ Filming locations according to IMDb