Espion, lève-toi (1982) User Reviews

Splendid Spy Thriller

[Artemis-9 · 7/10 · 19 January 2006]

I caught this film on a hotel room TV set, just when I was going to bed. A look at Lino Ventura made me stay just for a few minutes - and finally I set on to the dramatic, dark end. Looking at my watch I noticed that I must have started watching the film just after the early credits.

This capacity of keeping even a tired spectator awake is a trade mark of director Yves Boisset, with an easy to follow storyline told so that it is new, or old seen through interesting new angles. The ambiance is luxurious Switzerland and French intelligence headquarters, or college's libraries - for spying is done not only by your common 007-type of agent, but by people "above all suspicion".

Ventura plays a retired agent living a peaceful life with a younger, loving German woman, who's teaching in France, when he is called into active service again - very much against his will. When he finally starts suspecting all people around him - minus those who fall dead after he makes the first moves into knowledge... - it will be too late. Too late to avoid discovering the unthinkable truth, and too late to get back to his peaceful retirement.

The dark end may not please all viewers, but it is actually a signal of the times the movie was made - and now that you are a quarter of a century past that, you may notice that it was a forewarning against the all encompassing spying and intruding on people's lives from those people up there who are "above all suspicion"!

When sleepers meet the Big Sleep

[VanheesBenoit · 7/10 · 30 March 2012]

Sebastien Grenier is a successful French businessman, who has been living in Switserland for several years. He's married to a German professor of literature. But Grenier has a secret: he used to be a field agent for the French secret service SDECE. However, as the years went by, he certainly don't expect a wake up call any longer. He couldn't have been more wrong… Similarly as with CIA-agents, once SDECE, always SDECE… He's played by a somewhat grumpy, tired looking Lino Ventura.

It all starts with a RAF style execution of a passenger in a tramway by a leftist terrorist group. From then on, Grenier gets caught in a whirlwind of events, leading to several other violent deaths. The "where's" and "when's" of these events are announced in a cool voice by a narrator. (Several other spy movies use a similar semi-documentary approach, others use a "telex"-message for the same purpose). The first victim is Henri Marchand, another SDECE-agent, played by Bernard Fresson. Many Americans will remember him as the French commissaire Barthélémy in French Connection II, with his funny clashes with "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hacklman.

Grenier soon realizes that he might not live very long anymore. But who is the spider in the deadly web around him ? Is it the mysterious and cold "Richard", played by Bruno Cremer ?(of "Maigret"-fame). Or is it Jean-Paul Chance, a slick Swiss high official from the Justice Department, who seems to be extremely well informed by whatever Grenier is doing. (Chance is played by Michel Piccoli, who clearly enjoys irritating the Grenier-character). Who's systematically knocking out several pawns on the international chess game, and why ? In the end, the French former agent will manage to shed some light into some dark corners. What he doesn't realize is that the gun, pointed at his back is hidden in another shadowy corner. Or is he ?

Not a bad movie, but by far not as good as "Le silencieux" (1973, also with Ventura. Maybe the movie doesn't really manages to create a real mysterious atmosphere of clear and present danger, as for example "La septième cible" manages to do in a better way. The way the secret agents communicate with each other also has something laughable, it all looks so terribly boyscoutish. It also made me seasick to see how sparkless the Grenier-Gretz "couple" apparently had become. They were clearly at the brink of a total burn out, before death took its toll… In fact, the whole movie has something extremely depressing: the tired looks of Grenier, his moody interactions with his business collaborator, his secretary and his wife, and every one involved in the story. The soundtrack consists of a sober, efficient but also somewhat depressing march, yet another Morricone creation. Even the landscapes of Switserland surely wouldn't be the ones I would use to attract more tourists

Well told story with great actors

[innperu · 8/10 · 24 March 2021]

I saw this film years ago when I was much younger and it was just another movie but 35 odd years later you understand what the story is about and its all very clever indeed

Abstract politics.

[dbdumonteil · 15 February 2003]

Yves Boisset has always been a politically committed director,but his stories are always linear and accessible:hence their efficiency,even if people complain about their manicheism or naiveté.One cannot deny their impact on the audience when it comes to depicting the Algerian war (in RAS) or racism (in Dupont Lajoie,probably his best effort).

"Espion lève -toi" moves in another direction ;relatively speaking it shows the influence of Pakula and "the parallax view".A hero (Ventura)fighting against something he does not really understand,estranged from his compatriots in Zurich ,Switzerland,the symbol of the power of money.Around him everybody's dying,even his lover ,a German professor is threatened ,and maybe she's not the woman he thinks she is (hints at Baader's gang and terrorism).When Ventura strikes back,not only it's too late but it may also be absurd and pointless:he 's nothing but a puppet on a string like laurence Harvey in "Mandchourian candidate" .

This movie is unique in Boisset's career:it was initially to be directed by Zulawski,and the snub critics used to say what a better movie it would have been !It's not sure :Zulawski's works are often pretentious and -in France,abroad they do not seem to bother- overrated ("posession" or "l'important c'est d'aimer")and Boisset's simplicity and academic but efficient style fit the screenplay like a glove.Unlike Frankenheimer's and Pakula 's works I Mention above,"Espion lève- toi" is no masterpiece but it should appeal to people who like this genre.

Yves Boisset got lost after this effort:he tackled pure thriller with "le prix du danger" "canicule "or "bleu comme l'enfer",and deprived of his political or social comments he was nothing but another director

Not bad but...

[RodrigAndrisan · 6/10 · 28 November 2017]

... I would have wanted to know exactly what was the spying object of all those characters?...Total mystery, no one mentions anything about that. About the music, Morricone is the greatest no doubt about it but, the music for this one, which I like it very much, and I knew it before watching the film from an old audio-cassette, is more suitable for a war movie, I see already the German tanks advancing in formation on that... Lino Ventura, which I like very much, unfortunately, is the same Lino Ventura, he's playing himself. I like more chameleons, totally versatile actors (example Gary Oldman), which in every role they are different, you don't even recognize them. Michel Piccoli, Bruno Cremer, Heinz Bennent and Bernard Fresson are all better than Ventura in smaller roles. Very impressive Marc Mazza, the bad guy (also a very good bad guy in the masterpiece directed by René Clément Rider on the Rain/Le passager de la pluie made in 1970).

typical french political / agent thriller

[agricola64 · 8/10 · 24 September 2005]

very different from typical Hollywood fare as there is no happy end - the "hero" is killed in the end.

Lino Ventura, playing a retired agent (or is he sleeper?) with a stony face is being reactivated by mysterious parties to take part - unwillingly - in a game played by the soviet, the french and perhaps even by the swiss secret service ... trying to find out what it is all about, he has no chance as lots of his friends and acquaintances die around him, even his lover

special highlight - musical score by Ennio Morricone, having a very nice marching theme .. highlighting the relentless advance of events

suspenseful spy movie

[myriamlenys · 8/10 · 12 March 2019]

A Frenchman living in Switzerland may look like a douce, prosperous investment banker, but in reality he is an agent working for the French espionage service. He hasn't heard from his bosses for a long time and that suits him just fine, since he's looking forward to a peaceful old age in the company of his loving wife. One day, however, he receives a coded sign saying that he has been re-activated as a spy. The poor man is about to be swept along in a stream of mutually contradictory orders, messages, contacts, assignments. This could be funny, save for the fact that there are people dying left, right and center...

Quite a good spy movie with a clever, intricate plot. The poor protagonist (a very fine performance by Lino Ventura, here) evolves in a twilight world where every warm body could be a friend, an enemy, or someone who is still deciding whether to become a friend or an enemy. As a result the ambiguity can be cut with a knife, as can the paranoia. The movie's plot travels between France, Germany and Switzerland, with inventive use being made of the various locations.

As modern viewers we can watch the movie with a certain distance - that's the luxury of living a few decades later - but much of the material must have cut close to the bone, what with the plot involving, among other things, a radical ultra-left terrorist gang committing bomb attacks and political assassinations.

As I've said, quite a good movie, but it demands close and continuous attention - miss a few minutes and you might miss out on a clue, a twist, a new character...

So underrated

[DumDumBastos · 10/10 · 29 January 2024]

This is the height of the cold war and Europe is divided.

This is not made more explicit in the movie for it was just the state of affairs at the time. Anyone who was living in Europe at the time will remember the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, as well as violent activism especially from ultra left wing groups such as the Baader Meinhof group or the Red Army Fractions, (not to mention separatists group in France or Spain which are not depicted here).

Sébastien Grenier, part of a French sleeper cell in neutral Switzerland, is woken up after the assassination of another agent by ultra-left gang in broad daylight in Zurich, and his life is upset.

I read in another review that "what they are spying on is never mentioned" - that's the nature of a sleeper cell: they don't spy. The original French title (roughly "Spy, wake up!") was, I thought, quite explicit.

The movie is a remarkable depiction of the political manipulation of idealist groups and inter play of rival "intelligence" networks, including the utter disrespect for the life of others.

Yes, Lino Ventura plays himself in here, because the character calls for exactly that. The Swiss cultural melting pot of is wonderfully rendered, support cast is excellent, Daniel Piccoli is marvelously slimy and renders his character perfectly... No big biceps, no M16, no big badasses in this movie; it has a much more realistic take on what the game was at the time, with all its finesse and inhumanity.

Even Ennio Moricone's soundtrack is just right.

Maybe it was poorly translated, or maybe the rating public is expecting Schwarzenegger, but I saw this movie in French shortly after it came out and several times since and I will watch it again for it is truly remarkable.

One of my favorite movies ever. 10.

Intriguing spy thriller

[searchanddestroy-1 · 24 February 2023]

I am still amazed by the resemblance between this movie and another one starring Lino Ventura, and also a French movie full of mystery and disturbing plot, another movie where the technicians and actors did not know the whereabouts of the plot: UN PAPILLON SUR L'EPAULE. Of course the story is not the same, here Ventura plays a secret agent working for the French SDECE, the former DGSE - French CIA, MI6 or Mossad, in charge of the protection of outside French interests in the world. It is hard to follow, disturbing I repeat, and the ending is more or less the same - I would say the very same for the Lino Ventura's character. Another element in common with UN PAPILLON SUR L'EPAULE. You can also think about LA SEPTIEME CIBLE or LE SILENCIEUX, also with Ventura, as a tracked down man. Typical Yves Boisset's topic, government maneuvering, fiddling, where the human life is easily worthless. Boisset's favourite message. Reason of state among everything and every one. I personally met Marc Mazza once and shaked his hand; he was my father's boss' son. Father Mazza was a big executive in an Italian tyre factory, and my father a truck driver delivering tyres in retailor's warehouses.