Released in the U.S. several years later due to being a French production, "Cold Sweat" is one of the dumbest Charles Bronson action flicks made during his prime in the 1970's. That wouldn't matter much if it was even a tenth thrilling to watch but it is laborious and hardly exciting through 9/10 of it.
Bronson is Joe Moran, a happy-go-lucky guy living in Southern France with his clueless wife, Fabienne (Liv Ullman), who wishes he spent less time playing cards with the guys, and her 11-year-old daughter (Yannick de Lulle). Joe rents boats off the harbor to presumably all sorts of clientele. One day he gets a phone call asking for a Joe Martin and he hangs up angrily. Of course, all hell breaks loose when it turns out be a criminal from Joe's shady past, which Ullman was unaware of. The criminal breaks into the house and Joe snaps the guy's neck and throws him over a cliff. Now he and his family's life are in danger, leading to other criminals from Joe's former crew of thieves to appear. You see, Joe is a former soldier who abandoned these fellow soldiers during a robbery. Now they want payback. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a Bronson thriller, and you'd be wrong.
We get moments where Joe confronts these guys, leaves with one soldier to recover the loot owed or something, leaves one for dead, comes back to the crew who threatens his family, leaves with another solider, and then it turns out the one Joe left for dead is alive, and so on. The interminable climax involves an irate, greedy soldier who wants the briefcase of cash while chasing Ullman and the daughter over some rocky cliffs. It goes and on and on past the point of tedium. It could be a comic farce but as directed by Terence Young, it is a yawner. You'll be yawning through most of this picture, especially at the usually charismatic James Mason as Captain Ross imperfectly using a Southern accent. Ross suffers a mortal wound and points his gun at one soldier while getting pale faced and passing out - not one of Mason's finest moments. If not even the usually dynamic Jill Ireland can keep you awake, you know the filmmakers have left Bronson country in shambles.
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