Tags
1970s, 1970s film, Alain Delon, cinema, crime film, film, film noir, film review, France, French, French Film, Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Cercle Rouge, movie, movie review, movies, neo-noir, The Red Circle
1970
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
The familiar ‘one last job’ trope gets another go around in the stylish neo-noir The Red Circle. Following the savaging of his 1969 film Army of Shadows (now rightfully considered a masterpiece), Jean-Pierre Melville’s first film of the 1970s leans heavily on noir and pulp fiction in its pursuit of the director’s distinctive moral ambiguity. Watching it today, The Red Circle is arguably overstuffed, marred by the crutch of quasi-mysticism, overly referential, and at the same time a brilliantly enjoyable caper through the shadows.