The Big Risk 4K 1960

Many directors who make movies based on masterpieces, in my understanding, lose a lot in comparison with the original. Especially when you compare the films that José Giovanni personally made from his own scripts with those that were adapted by other directors - Robert Henrico, Jean-Pierre Melville, Henri Verneuil and, in this case, Claude Sautet. But this relatively old (1960) movie, directed by a wonderful French director based on a novel by the famous José Giovanni, made a very, very strong impression on me. Young, beautiful and charming Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo, it would seem, simply created for these roles - a maturing criminal, who is drawn very versatile and colorful, and a young thief who helps him out of a sense of male friendship, male criminal solidarity, which Jose Giovanni sang in his works.

Abel Davos (Ventura) is a criminal with a track record, around whom the ring of the police shrinks. But at the very beginning we see a paradox - this missing man has a wife and two children. The director reveals to us the story of Davos gradually, throughout the movie. And it is not immediately possible to properly understand and appreciate Ventura's character. But in some scenes we can see that Davos is not such a monster as the authorities see him. In the scene on the boat where Abel and his sidekick throw the man leading the boat overboard, Abel throws him a life preserver. And in the scene where they take his children away, to a safer place to live, you can see how he suffers. And how charming and pleasant he is in the scene with the girl at the sink! And after the movie it becomes clear that the maturing criminal Davos is actually a deeply unhappy, lost, broken man inside.

Eric Stark (Belmondo) is a man of a very different generation. He is much younger than Davos (at the time of filming Ventura was 41 years old, Belmondo - 27), and has not yet had time to really know the 'charms' of criminal life. In one of the scenes Abel says to him: 'You do not realize what you are involved in. You shouldn't have come. Yes, Stark doesn't realize it, but nevertheless helps Abel, becomes his 'third shoulder', befriends his children. In fact, Abel himself gives the reason for this attitude: “You felt sorry for a guy with two kids”. The scene where he is driving the 'wounded' Abel with a 'head injury' and bumps into a girl who is arguing with a fellow traveler is telling. After beating up the insolent man, Eric lets the girl into the ambulance, asks for her help and subsequently begins to make love to her. And in the 27-year-old Belmondo is already visible future hero-superman - and a highly elevated head, and gesticulation with plastic, and the manner of beating - all prophesies him, then still young and budding actor, a great future.

The inner fracture in Abel can be seen already when the first victims appear - two close people at once. It becomes known how many cities Abel changed for his life, and he is going to leave Italy, for in France he will be safer. But such things do not pass easily for master criminals, which is clearly demonstrated in the scene on the shore. Further in Paris he is betrayed by the people he trusted. However, with the help of Eric he manages to relatively resolve the situation.

It would seem that everything is ready to claw its way out, but a ring of police, assisted by his former associates, tightens around Davos.

In some translations this movie is also given such a strange and completely unrelated to the original title as “Hot Asphalt”. I think that this beautiful phrase is not taken by chance. Because Abel's life in this movie is life as in the hot atmosphere of hot asphalt, when it is impossible to stay in one place for a long time and when something torments you all the time, like an exhausting heat. The hot asphalt is the setting in which Davos finds himself, a setting agonizing and murderous for him....

In the final scenes, both show their best selves. Eric sacrifices himself in a certain way, while Abel begins to feel remorse for the people who died because of him. There's too much sacrifice. And in this case, the ending, quite unexpected, is justified, because the master criminal Abel Davos could not do otherwise, despite his reputation, it was the only thing he could do, for it is a real man's act. This is the only way he can redeem himself in front of these people, and it should not be forgotten how many people he killed with his own hands, saving his own skin. Conscience is stronger than pathological vitality, which is inherent in all gangsters like Abel. The eternal question is which of these two feelings will be stronger? The ending of the movie clearly shows it.

The disappointing outcome of the movie “Weigh All Risk” is manifested in the fact that criminal male friendship turns out to be higher than kinship feelings and even higher than the instinct of self-preservation. All the efforts of the protagonist disappear under the influence of the feeling of this very Friendship, guilt and the voice of conscience. And this is the only possible option, because otherwise Lino Ventura's hero would not be a man with a capital letter, but a monster, who without looking sacrifices everyone who happens to be near him. Abel, having realized that the price of his struggle is too high, commits a moral feat - in the name of redeeming his guilt. And that's what you believe. That is why the finale, despite the apparent tragedy, is optimistic - it gives hope for the best qualities in man, hope for heroism and conscience.