Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
The stench of desperation hangs over Magnet of Doom like stale smoke. Michel, a boxer, walks into a deathly quiet arena for his fight, loses on points, and exits to boos, well aware this was his last chance. Strapped for cash, he forcefully takes his girlfriend’s only prized possession – an inherited necklace – to pawn off, and when told it’s worthless, lies and tells her he couldn’t bear to sell it after all. He’ll leave this same woman waiting at a café to skulk off.
Across town, Dieudonné, a corrupt industrialist whose crimes are catching up to him, yells at his business partners, trying to intimidate them like the scared bully he is. Once home, he packs his bag to stay out of the law’s reach. He needs an underling, and in his desperation, Michel signs on as Dieudonné’s secretary. With Michel stuffed under his arm like a safety blanket, Dieudonné sets off for New York, or anywhere someone will have him, marking the beginning of a game of cat and mouse between these two deplorable men.
Magnet of Doom is a good idea that begets a bad story. The malfeasance of elites, their arrogance in confrontation, and self-important delusion is writ large in Melville’s movie, and it poses as a taking-to-task that still feels urgent. That’s soon revealed to be wishful thinking, for while there’s certainly little affection for the plight of these two bastards, the story, of which there’s ultimately little, moves as if in molasses, treating you to an increasing number of occasions for Michel and Dieudonné to prove why they only have each other.
Jean-Paul Belmondo didn’t speak English and he declined to star in American movies, a decision that based on his performance here seems like a keen bit of self-awareness. He’s not good. Belmondo’s famed insouciance comes off as timid here, his usually insolent voice turning squeaky. Belmondo is a switchblade in French. In God’s country, he’s string cheese.
The movie is essentially over by the hour-mark, and lollygags for another 45 minutes. These two men aren’t deepened as the movie goes along, their comeuppance neither wicked nor interesting. Without ballast to their characters, their petty struggle is like watching toddlers fight over toys, and with the way Melville abandons some central plot points, it seems even he’s not interested in watching.
I won’t say it’s a case of Melville struggling to find his footing outside of his native France – his Two Men In Manhattan is a fine film – but here it feels closer to a saccharine fantasy, like cotton candy on a hot day, melting all over the screen with a sugary sweet score and a cast of caricatures buzzing around Michel and Dieudonné’s doomed road trip.
There might be something to it, though. What starts as a punchy exposé of men’s destructive drive for self-preservation turns into a lamentable road trip where consequences don’t even satisfy, because those bearing the brunt have long since curled up on their backs, limbs wriggling in surrender.
Mikkel Frederiksen 