646f9e108c A young man comes to the rescue of his girlfriend abducted by thieves and brought to Rio. An extravagant adventure ensues. Farce, spy spoof, and adventure. Swarthy thieves ignore jewels to steal an Amazon figurine from the Museum of Man in Paris&#39; Trocadero Palace and kidnap the world&#39;s authority on the lost Maltec civilization. Cut to Agnes, the daughter of a murdered man who possessed one of two other such figurines. Moments after her sweetheart, Adrien, an Army private with a week&#39;s leave, arrives in Paris to see her, Agnes too is kidnapped, drugged, and loaded on a plane to Rio. Adrien is in hot pursuit, and before he can rescue her (with the help of a shoeshine boy), foil the murderous thieves, and solve the riddle of the Maltecs, he must traverse Rio, Brasília, and the Amazon heartland… all before the end of his week&#39;s leave. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars in this French adventure-lite, something about a military officer on leave who becomes involved in a kidnapping plot after a professor and his assistant are hypnotized and snatched by nefarious underworld types. The farcial yet dryly disengaged tone and the dewy photography has lead some to label this an avant-garde comedy. Actually, it&#39;s a rambling, repetitive genre-effort, very much of its time and curiously bland. There&#39;s a predictable romantic interlude involving Françoise Dorléac and a pretty but narcotizing Brazilian score from Georges Delerue, but the rest is slight stuff indeed. Very lax on the jokes and the sight-gags, though this may be wholly intentional. *1/2 from **** First of all, let me comment on a misconception in some other reviews: the &quot;search for the lost treasure of an exotic civilization&quot; plot predates Spielberg&#39;s Indiana Jones, Peck/Sharif&#39;s Mackenna&#39;s Gold, this Belmondo vehicle and even Franz Lang&#39;s 1919 Spiders. The creators of That Man from Rio clearly knew what they were doing when they decided to use this hoary plot and make gentle fun of it.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, the execution is not particularly good. Indifferent camera work and a fatal lack of any &quot;dramatic tension&quot; sense make the movie more tedious than entertaining. In addition, Belmondo, who had had his big break four years earlier, isn&#39;tsparklinghe could be just a few years later. You can tell he tries, though.<br/><br/>Having said all that, there are a few good things that need to be said about the movie. The viewers are kept guessing whether A or B is The Bad Guy until the final revelation. A few moments during the obligatory bar brawl scene look fresh. There is a minor but amusing twist at the end of the jungle sequence.<br/><br/>Mostly watchable – although you may check your watch a few times – so let&#39;s say 5/10.
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