This film was almost like watching a documentary. It felt like real-time and when I thought the film had been on for 2 hours, I checked the time and it was only 1 hour. They showed many scenes for way longer than required to establish what was going on. The train scene in the beginning just dragged on and on. The dragnet just went on and on, too. Oh, did I mention it is French? It is, with subtitles. That should have been my first clue... Thank goodness there is little talking so I can play poker more easily while this thing drones on and on...The movie was well lit and well shot. That's about the best I can say about it. Is it always overcast in France? The outdoor scenes lacked contrast due to the flat lighting from the sky but, overall, it was easy enough to see things as they plodded along. Slowly but slowly.I have not made it to the end although I expect I will since I have gotten 90 minutes into it just to see if anything ever happens but it is fight to not stop it and move on to an episode of Hot in Cleveland. At least that is interesting and has some laughs. This is just plain dragging... This supposed to be a heist movie. I wish they would steal something before the movie is over. Please steal SOMETHING! ANYTHING!!! Soon???

"Le Circle Rouge" from 1970 is a French film. That's another way of saying that a lot of Americans won't like it and won't understand this gritty and underplayed film. The title comes from a made-up Buddhist saying, "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle." Melville made up a saying for Le Samourai as well.One thing we've lost in filmmaking in this country is the art of the buildup. You have to get to the point of the story in five minutes. This film is about a jewelry heist, and the jewelry heist happens very late in the film. Corey (Alain Delon) is released from prison after five years. Just before he leaves, one of the guards tells him about a jewelry heist he can get in on. Corey is uncertain, so instead he goes to his old boss Rico and steals money from him. Rico sends thugs after him to retrieve the money.In a parallel plot, a criminal Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte) is being transported by train and escapes. He winds up hiding in Corey's trunk while Corey is in a restaurant.Corey finds him, hears his story, and lets him travel by trunk. The car is cut off by Rico's people, and in the ensuing fight, Corey loses the money. Now broke, he decides to join the jewelry heist and include Vogel.They invite a former police detective, Jansen (Yves Montand) to join them. He is a bad alcoholic having the DTs. Somehow he manages to pull himself together and meet with them. The heist is on.I would be surprised if there is one page of dialogue in this script, and yet you keep watching. Perhaps influenced by another classic, Rififi, the heist is carried out in complete silence.The director, Melville, does a magnificent job of keeping us interested, even if there is not much background given of the characters. We know that Delon's boss is sleeping with his former girlfriend, and that's about it. We don't know what made Montand an alcoholic. Melville keeps us focused on their objective. The acting is very smooth, with Volonte (Vogel) a standout who also has the best role. His scene of escaping police and dogs is one of the best scenes in the movie.The police commissioner in the movie states that in the end, all men are guilty, even the police. He believes that we are all tainted with original sin. Maybe so. "Le Circle Rouge" won't do much to convince you otherwise.

Highly stylized, Jean Pierre Melville's 1967 take on film noir is a tour de force of the crime genre. The plot is simple, fresh out of jail,Corey (played by french actor Alain Delon) sets up a jewel heist that will guarantee him at least 20 millions in diamonds. At first Corey is hesitant about the whole ordeal, but after getting the right people to help him on the job it seems that he will have no problem getting away with the lot. The rest you just got to see to believe.With somber grey colors and tones, this film takes you back to an era long gone. I saw it as a kind of "homage" to the film noirs of the late 30's, early 40's of American cinema. The jewel heist scene is a direct tribute to a scene in Jules Dassin's "Rififi" in which they do not utter a single word while they're robbing the jewelry store. Excellent film by one of the best French directors ever.

I would hesitate to call this a thriller, since there is little to keep you on the edge of your seat. There is a jewel heist that is engaging, but it is not that different from similar heists in other movies and for me it did not have the suspense inherent in either of the heists in Jules Dassin's "Tokkopi" or "Rififi." The details on how the heist was planned are almost entirely missing--director Melvile seems to be more interested in what happened before and after the heist than in the mechanics of it. The overall mood is one of cool detachment.The movie starts with Corey (Alain Delon) getting out of prison, after having been told of an easy jewel heist by one of the prison guards. At first Corey expresses little interest, claiming that he has no interest in winding up in prison again. But the hook has been set. Later in the film Corey has a chance meeting with Vogel, an escaped prisoner on the lam. Once these two have hooked up it is inevitable that they cannot resist the robbery. More than half the movie is concerned with how Corey and Vogel meet. There is some philosophizing about how fate dictates certain personal meetings that have significant consequences. I did not see any great deep insight offered on this--we have all met people who have significantly changed our lives. No mysterious hand of fate is involved, just random chance.Along the way Corey and Vogel recruit the services of Jansen (Yves Montand) as an expert marksman. Jansen is an ex policeman who got out of the force because he could not tolerate the corruption. As we first meet Jansen he seems to have more general global problems than just with corruption in the police department as he is in the depths of the DTs. This scene is perhaps the scariest in the movie. The appearance of Jansen's apartment testifies to the quality of the set design, as seen throughout. Montand and Corey deliver the goods with their restrained performances and they alone make the movie worth seeing. The more I see Montand in these kind of roles, the more I think of him as a French Humphrey Bogart.I liked the variety shows being put on at the upscale nightclub where the mob gathered. I wish the DVD extras had had complete performances of those.The plot is not without holes. The biggest one for me was the fact that the thieves could gain access to the jewelry store by way of a window with single pane glass. No matter how remote that window was, given the heavy security in place it is hard to imagine that any entry was not maximally protected.The musical score is unobtrusive but effective and noteworthy in its own right.The head of the police internal affairs posits that all men are capable of corruption and evil. Is this so? And what about women?