Verdict
Summary
Part mystery, part thriller, and a little bit of romantic drama with some lighthearted touches, The Body of My Enemy is a bit overlong at over two hours with lots of flashbacks and back and forth stuff involving the murder trial, and it works best when it’s focused on revenge, but this isn’t just a revenge thriller, no, it’s more of a lackadaisical character study of Belmondo’s character than anything else.
Plot:
A man wrongly convicted of a double homicide is released from prison after seven years, and he carefully goes about his revenge.
Review:
Born to a lower middle class family, Francois Leclercq (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has been a delightful cad about his station in life, and when he sees his way up the ladder, he climbs it, even if it means tearing everything down as he goes. He sleeps with a very wealthy woman and wins her heart, while also guarding his own, and he manages to leverage his way into an entrepreneurial endeavor by starting his own nightclub and being successful at it, but being successful comes with some compromises: Drugs come into his club, and even though high society loves him, he still has to temper his relationships with extreme prejudice. When two of his associates / employees are found dead in what looks like a double homicide in his club, Leclercq is implicated and put on trial, and after a series of testimonies against him, he’s sent to prison for seven years. He maintains his innocence, and when he is released, he slyly goes about researching who actually committed the murders and framed him. His time out of prison gets very, very interesting, and after visiting his old flames, his old enemies, and his old friends, he begins to piece together the puzzle that had him at the center of it as a patsy.
Part mystery, part thriller, and a little bit of romantic drama with some lighthearted touches, The Body of My Enemy is a bit overlong at over two hours with lots of flashbacks and back and forth stuff involving the murder trial, and it works best when it’s focused on revenge, but this isn’t just a revenge thriller, no, it’s more of a lackadaisical character study of Belmondo’s character than anything else. He carries the film, and while he may have been a little too old to play this social climber, his easy charisma is always appealing. From director Henri Verneuil.
Kino Lorber has just released a brand new Blu-ray edition o The Body of My Enemy, and it looks and sounded stellar in its high definition transfer. There’s a new audio commentary by a trio of film historians, and there’s also the trailer on the disc.
