Le Prix du danger [The Prize of peril] (1983)

(On Cable TV, January 2020) My expectations were pleasantly exceeded by Le Prix du danger, a French 1980s film that, in many ways, anticipates The Running Man and the craze in dangerous reality TV shows. Adapted from a Robert Sheckley short story, it’s about a near-future TV show in which the participants brave death for a sum of money. And I don’t mean “death” in an abstract sense, as five hunters actively participate in the tracking and killing of their prey. The film begins with a big-budget bang as helicopters and a dirigible follow the thrilling conclusion of the third such episode of the series. Then it’s off to the casting and preparation of the fourth episode a month later, a process during which we see the studio executives (including a few morally conflicted ones) as well as the man who will ultimately become the fourth participant. Executed with a bigger budget than you’d expect from an early-1980s French genre film, Le Prix du Danger is occasionally plodding, slightly undercooked and ultimately infuriating by design, but it’s a surprisingly tense piece of work. I definitely prefer it to the more famous The Running Man, largely because anything can (and eventually does) happen in this megastar-less film. The conclusion is depressing but remarkably honest to the film’s tone. Yves Boisset shows some good directing skills (a good budget helps, even if it’s invested in the opening rather than the remainder of the film), while Gérard Lanvin has the necessary charisma to make a likable hero out of the protagonist and Marie-France Pisier is simply lovely as an ultimately corrupt TV executive. Still, Le Prix du Danger remains a little-known surprise from 1983, and it definitely should be a bit better known among genre aficionados, even if the reality-TV satire thing is wearing thin decades later.