I love the style and art of Jean-Pierre Melville. When I finally own a house or something similar when I go to decorate I am going to rewatch his films because there is something about the ‘60s classy French style that he perpetuates that’s so fucking cool. LE CERCLE ROUGE is not as strong storywise nor stylistically as LE SAMOURAÏ and the heist isn’t as crazy as RIFIFI, but it is an interesting film to check out nonetheless. The actual heist is the best part of the film and the film suffers from its length, but it is easy to see how this film influenced so many heist films that could come after it specifically the films of Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh’s OCEAN films. Additionally the prison break story that runs concurrently with the first half of the film, feels like a lot to happen the same day our main character is released, but the chemistry between Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté is great so it’s easy to get past.
