Melville is at the top of his game, giving us his next-to-last entry into the world of deception, crime, and extreme suspense that made him a maestro of the French heist genre.
Melville is at the top of his game, giving us his next-to-last entry into the world of deception, crime, and extreme suspense that made him a maestro of the French heist genre.
Corey (Alain Delon) is the young gun in the French underworld who has just been released from prison. Escaped convict Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonté) hides in the trunk of Corey's car. The two enlist the help of an alcoholic former cop (Yves Montand) for an elaborate jewelry-store robbery. Police inspector Mattei (Bourvil) whom Vogel escaped in the beginning of the film is on the case trying to recapture the criminals. He is not opposed to using blackmail techniques to get answers out of the
unwilling witnesses and criminals brought in for questioning. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
I can't say that Cercle Rouge is an overlooked masterpiece, but it's an amazing antidote to the current style of filmmaking in which silence and causal relationships are routinely disregarded.
If you ever wanted to know how to look good wearing a trenchcoat, lighting a cigarette, handling a revolver, drinking a whiskey or overpowering an armed guard, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1970 gangster drama is your guide.
A seminal work in the advancement of the crime film, the cool, solemn tragedy of Le Cercle Rouge rightly still makes most gangster films look like unfocused male fantasies and boyish temper tantrums.
Melville views it all at a distance and with a slow kind of precision that is missing from modern movies. There's no flash here, just criminal behavior observed with an eye for detail.
Melville's special achievement was to relocate the American gangster film in France, and to incorporate his own steely poetic and philosophical obsessions.
It's a languorous and uncompromising work that will drive some to distraction, but also a movie of dark, still beauty that will have others weeping tears of pure, noir joy.
Apesar de jamais permitir que seus personagens falem muita coisa, Melville leva o espectador a conhecê-los através de suas ações, interações e olhares.
A good French heist thriller from the 70's that's a slow-burn, but delivers in spades when it comes to tension and atmosphere. A daring jewelry theft is the highlight of the movie, and kept me on the edge of my seat.
Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) is a police procedural meets heist film that seems to be almost a playbook for all films like it that came afterwards. Whether it was a consious effort on other filmmaker's parts or developed along the lines by serendipity, the caper film was
forever-influenced by the likes of people like Brian De Palma. To boot, there are masterful performances from both Alain Delon and Gian Maria, two men whose characters are brought together by circumstance but develop an unspoken friendship throughout the film that pays off beautifully in the end. Although the overall pace at times is a little lax, the film itself, in style, performance and execution, is a terrific piece of cinema.
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