A Pain in the Ass 4K 1973 Ultra HD 2160p

Ralph (Ventura), a hitman, happens to meet Pignon, a down-on-his-luck traveling salesman staying in the hotel room next door. Pignon’s wife has cheated on him, and he’s planning to hang himself. Ralph grows fond of the dimwit and not only saves him, but, under his influence, refuses to carry out the mafia’s order to kill another man.

User Review

“A Pain in the Ass” is a film quite typical of Francis Weber, in which one hapless character drives everyone around him—including the audience on the other side of the screen—up the wall. To be honest, I can hardly imagine where this screenwriter gets his love for such characters. That said, sometimes it doesn’t turn out so bad—in comedies with Richard, for example.

But “A Pain in the Ass” somehow lives up to its title. For starters, Pignon isn’t the kind of character who’ll elicit sympathy if he were to hang himself in the next room. You’d be more likely to slip a guide on how to tie a slipknot under his door. But here’s the paradox: a ruthless hitman with a clear assignment that allows for little leeway drops everything and starts running around with his loser neighbor. He calls his girlfriend, deals with the bully, and even acts as a taxi driver. The psychology of a hired killer should have suggested a completely different solution to Ralph: tie Pignon up and lock him in a closet for a well-deserved rest.

And while all of the above can still be watched with some degree of calm, once the showdown with François’s girlfriend and her new suitor begins, it becomes clear: in “A Pain in the Ass,” there is simply no one to sympathize with, no one to root for. You might recall that, after all, there are “novels without a hero,” there is *Vanity Fair*, but damn it—their existence is justified by their own artistic merit, by the mastery of their storytelling. Molinaro has only Lino Ventura, whom, at the very least, one can appreciate as a good actor without tying him to a single specific role in a specific film. And then there’s the fate of that fellow “ordered” by Ralph—though insignificant, it’s still an incentive to watch until the end.

By the way, I’ll explain why the “killer” of the film is the main character’s persona. If it were a matter of direction or acting, then, for example, the 1981 remake titled *The Friend* by the brilliant director Billy Wilder or Francis Veber’s own 2008 remake would have looked better, but no: it is precisely the character of the loser protagonist and the insincerity of the story itself that put all these films in the same category.

I don’t call “A Pain in the Ass” bad just because “the main character is annoying” and “I don’t buy it”—those are too subjective reasons to do so.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (81.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1

Info Audio

#French: FLAC 1.0
#French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Info Subtitles