Fresh and Exciting

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

In this crime film there is no noise with useless music. Simplicity and mastery do the work. Watching Alain Delon, Yves Montand and Bourvil is a real pleasure. Jean-Pierre Melville delivers a Masterpiece and I'm thankful for such greatness.

LE CERCLE ROUGE is a masterpiece, even if the ending is a bit too pat for my liking. First, we see Delon - in one of his finest roles ever - released from jail and he is quick to surmise that his wife has been cheating on him, and he knows with whom, too. Gian Maria Volonte manages to elude police inspector André Bourvil - a memorable against type performance from a comedian riddled with cancer and in his final role here -- and joins up with Delon in unusual but totally believable circumstances, allowing the two men to bond; and Yves Montand, a drunkard who was once a top police officer and crack shot, now suffering evils similar to those of Ray Milland in THE LOST WEEKEND (US 1945).Jean-Pierre Melville confessed in his autobriography that he had wanted to team up Delon and Belmondo in LE CERCLE ROUGE, but Belmondo felt that his role would be far less substantial than Delon's and decided not to appear in the movie. Looking at Volonte's part, which Melville initially intended for Belmondo, I think the latter was right but Melville also said that he planned to make it meatier if Belmondo came on board.In the end, the acting is exceptional all round, so Belmondo is not missed. Each of the three main characters is flawed in some way, both in terms of behaviour and of some mental ineptitude, and that is a theme in the movie, how everyone is limited by an invisible circle of personal limitations.As a police interrogator (brilliantly played by Périer) points out, everyone is a sinner, even a youngster he booked on charges of drug consumption, to put pressure on his father, only to find out that the kid actually took drugs.The action sequences are first class (the heist is brilliant), the dialogue sharp and realistic, and photography remarkable in its simplicity and effectiveness.Ultimately, I expected a little bit more of a fight at the end, but it is a crisp and swift ending which shows the character played by Bourvil as he is: a man doing his job above all other considerations.LE CERCLE ROUGE also left me with the impression that the criminals are on both sides of the circle, but the ones on the side of the law have more power in their hands. I've seen this thought-provoking film some five times in the last 25 years, and will probably go back to it soon. Strongly recommended!

Its just as well I was not aware of the running time before deciding to re-watch this classic in Blu-ray as it just might have put me off. Needlessly even so, I must say as this begins sensationally well, even if we are not exactly sure what is happening, and continues at a pace with barely a pause for breath. Actually, I suppose that it is not quite correct because although the first third is the coolest and fastest moving nourish, hardboiled affair, there is something of a near silent pause for the heist itself. Much more visible on the new disc, the meticulous preparations and execution are immaculate, appreciated even by someone like me who thought the actual heist the least appealing feature of the earlier Rififi. The last third of the film comes as something of a disappointment but that is simply the story not in any way a criticism of the mighty directing. Great stuff!

"Le Cercle Rouge" is Jean-Pierre Melville's contribution to the heist movie genre, but, sitting squarely between the 1960s and the 1970s, is closer in tone to the gritty, urban crime dramas that would become popular after than the glamorous, playful heist movies that preceded it.Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonte, and Yves Montand play the three principal crooks who knock off a jewelry store in the Place Vendome, and Andre Bourvil is the principal investigator who brings them down. A recurring theme in the film is the relationship between chance and fate, the red circle of the film's title occurring visually again and again throughout the movie and reminding us of the quotation that appears at its beginning, suggesting that men of like minds will find themselves drawn together. And indeed the early parts of the film are the best ones, as Melville slowly teases us with each man's individual story and keeps us guessing as to how their paths will all eventually intersect. But by the end I confess I found myself getting a bit restless with the film's slow pace.The film is quiet and mournful; the men in it barely talk and don't seem to enjoy either the prospect of the heist itself nor the rewards they will reap from it. Instead, they seem almost relentlessly driven to commit their criminal acts, as if they have no choice in the matter, which confirms one character's opinion stated early on in the film that all men are guilty until proved innocent. It's this quality that makes the film feel more at home with the flurry of movies about urban isolation that became so popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s than with its predecessors from the 1950s and 1960s that made being a jewel thief look like nothing more than a suave good time.Grade: A-