Le Samouraï

Plot

Hitman Jef Costello (Delon) lives in a single-room Parisian apartment whose spartan furnishings include a little bird in a cage. A long opening shot shows him lying on his bed, smoking, when the following text appears on-screen:

Costello's methodical modus operandi includes airtight alibis involving his lover, Jane (Nathalie Delon). Having carried out a murder contract on a nightclub owner, he is seen leaving the scene by several witnesses, including piano player Valérie (Cathy Rosier). Their statements are inconsistent but the investigating officer (François Périer) believes Costello is his man based on the witnesses who viewed Costello and his alibi that he was with Jane the whole time.

Costello loses a police tail and gets to a meeting point on a subway overpass to get paid by his employers. However, instead of getting money, he is shot and wounded by a man sent by his employers. Having bandaged his wound and rested, he returns to the nightclub and goes for a car drive with the piano player. He is grateful to her, but does not understand why she protected him from the police even though she was the key witness to the murder. In the meantime, police officers bug his room, which agitates the bird in its cage. Upon returning, Costello notices some loose feathers scattered around the cage and the bird acting strangely. Suspecting an intrusion, he searches his room, finds the bug and deactivates it.

In the meantime, the police ransack Jane's apartment and offer her a deal: withdraw your alibi for Jef and we will leave you alone. Jane rejects the offer and shows them the door. Back in his apartment Costello finds himself held at gunpoint by the overpass shooter who gives him money and offers him a new contract (the intended target is not revealed to the audience at this point). Costello overpowers him and forces him to disclose the identity of his boss, a man by the name of Olivier Rey (Jean-Pierre Posier).

Following a chase scene in the Métro by several disguised cops and a goodbye visit to Jane, he drives to Rey's home, which turns out to be the same house in which the piano player lives. Costello kills Rey and drives to the nightclub. This time he makes no attempt to conceal his presence. He even checks his hat but does not accept the hat-check ticket. Having put on his white gloves in full view of everyone, he walks over to the stage where Valérie advises him to leave. When he pulls out his gun and points it at her, she quietly asks "Why, Jef?" and he replies, "I was paid to." After a moment of tension, the audience hears gunshots, but not from his gun. Costello falls to the ground and dies. A junior police officer tells Valérie she is lucky the police were there because otherwise Costello would have killed her. But when his boss picks up Jef's gun, it is revealed that he had removed all the bullets before entering the club.

Alternative ending

In an interview with Rui Nogueira, Melville indicated that he had shot an alternate version of Jef's death scene. In the alternative ending, which is actually the original version as Melville had written in the script, Costello meets his death with a picture-perfect grin à la Delon. The scene was changed to its current form when Melville angrily discovered that Delon had already used a smiling death scene in another of his films. Still images of the smiling death exist.

Influence and legacy

The film has influenced other works, listed in chronological order:

The film is ranked #39 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.

The film is considered a cult classic and holds a perfect 100% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.