Breathless (1983)

Genre: Drama

Directed by: Jim McBride

Cast: Richard Gere, Valérie Kaprisky

Running time: 97 minutes

This remake of the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard Nouvelle Vague classic titled À bout de souffle tells the story of Jesse Lujack, a difter in Vegas who steals a car but ends up accidently killing a cop while trying to get away from the scene of his crime. Now on the run, he shacks up with a French UCLA student, Monica, he met earlier. He tries to convince her to run away to Mexico with him as soon as he gets the money owed to him.

Remaking and adapting a foreign film is not a crime in itself. It has been done and it can be done well. With Breathless, though, Jim McBride and collaborators squeezed all of the charm out of À bout de souffle and did not leave much to be appreciated.

Richard Gere is no Belmondo. He tries so hard at making his character cool that it becomes laughable. As for Valérie Kaprisky, she was absolutely horrible. I must say that the script did not help much.

The only good thing about 1983’s Breathless is the soundtrack. There are many good tracks on here. As for the rest, I recommend that people stick to the original, even if you have to watch it with subtitles or dubbed in English.

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