Le Cercle Rouge

Melville’s penultimate effort ambitiously attempts to cram every known heist-movie trope into one dense package of coolly stylized mayhem. Melville had once been slated to direct Rififi, and evidently spent the better part of two decades brooding about his missed opportunity. In Le Cercle Rouge, he makes a valiant and very nearly successful effort to top Jules Dassin’s celebrated jewel robbery.