Le Combat dans l'Ile (1962)

Jean-Louis Trintignant is rapidly becoming something of a bete noir to me.  This busy French actor has appeared in dozens of films, some of them classics, but his vacantness is beginning to annoy me.  Having seen him recently in the pretentious "Trans-Europ Express", he was even less likeable in this political (not very thrilling) thriller.  He plays a right-wing conspirator framed by his mentor and on the run for a set-up, but unsuccessful, assassination attempt.  He is alienated from his wealthy family and from society at large, but his strained relationship with his wife, Romy Schneider, is really his only tenuous link with reality.  They take refuge with an old friend, Henri Serre, a socialist and pacifist.  When Trintignant tootles off to Buenos Aires to take revenge on his betrayer, Schneider and Serre begin a relationship which can only be resolved by Serre reluctantly adopting violence as well.  It may be something of a spoiler for me to write that by the end of the film I was rooting for Serre to "Kill the Bastard".