Jean-Paul Belmondo stars in a light-hearted action-comedy romp through Brazil, in what mostly amounts to a continuous pursuit of his abducted girlfriend (the tragic Francoise Dorleac) and some archaeological McGuffins. If you know Belmondo’s more populist films, you know that means tons of fun stunts from the man himself (Belmondo was Cruise before M:I Cruise, but likable). Fortunately, those charms more than compensate for the wacky tone, cultural tourism, and shocking lack of tan bikini girls from Ipanema.
More interesting from a cultural impact level, the influence of this film on Raiders of the Lost Ark is absolutely unmistakable (and apparently acknowledged by Spielberg), you can even see direct borrowing like the Map Room of Tanis sequence or Indy hanging off the submarine.