The Professional
Short description
A French secret agent named Josselin Beaumont is assigned to assassinate the lifelong president of Malawi. When political priorities shift, his own government betrays him, leaving him to be captured and imprisoned by Malawian authorities. After two years in captivity, Beaumont escapes and returns to Paris. He notifies his former superiors that he intends to complete his original mission during the president's official visit to France, while also seeking revenge against the intelligence agency that abandoned him.
Directed by Georges Lautner, this action thriller followed his 1980 film Le Guignolo and preceded Happy Easter in 1984. The screenplay was written by Lautner alongside Michel and Jacques Audiard, with Alain Belmondo serving as producer. The film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as Beaumont, supported by a cast that includes Robert Hossein, Elisabeth Margoni, Jean-Louis Richard, Jean Desailly, and Michel Beaune.
The movie has been well received by audiences, holding a rating of 7.4 on IMDb based on 19,000 votes and a 7.2 on TMDB from 613 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Patrick Alexander's novel *Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal* (1976).
- Michel Audiard was chosen as the screenwriter. However, at that time he was already working on the script for the crime drama 'Under Investigation' (1981) directed by Claude Miller, so the first draft of 'The Professional' turned out to be unsuccessful. Francis Veber was invited to revise the script. Audiard was so indifferent that he even allowed his son, Jacques Audiard (a future director), to be credited as a screenwriter on the film. According to Veber, who was not even mentioned in the credits, Jacques Audiard primarily served as a mediator between Veber and his father and had almost no part in revising the script.
- In the film, the protagonist hangs his badge on the dead commissar. The badge bears the inscription “BEAUMONT Josselin 56-322-460”. The numbers can be deciphered as follows: 56 is the population density per km² of Côte d'Ivoire (literally “Ivory Coast”, the place of Josselin “Joss” Beaumont’s imprisonment) or its ranking in the list of countries by area at the time the film was released; 322,460 is the area of Côte d'Ivoire in km².
- The cars involved in the chase scene: a Fiat-131 "Mirafiori" for the protagonist and a Peugeot-504 for the special agents.
- In the film's finale, Jean-Paul Belmondo's character is killed right next to the helicopter waiting for him. Director Georges Lautner also filmed an alternative ending in which Belmondo's character boards the helicopter and flies away (as insisted upon by the producers). However, with the actor's own consent, the finale featuring the death of secret agent Jocelyn Beaumont was kept during editing.
- The rifle used by Jocelyn Beaumont in Africa is an Armalite AR-10.
- Filming took place from May 5th to July 13th, 1981.
- The final scene of the film was shot at the Château de la Ferrerie estate, near the town of Rambouillet.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
