Le Cercle Rouge (Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Impassive faces, snap - brim hats, dangling cigarettes, sunglasses after dark, raincoats without rain, nightclub floor shows...We’re unmistakably in the milieu of Jean - Pierre Melville, doyen of the New Wave and prince of the fate - haunted French gangster picture (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samourai, etc.), here, for his penultimate work in the genre (“a digest of all the thrillers I've made”) bringing together three archetypal tough guys for their appointment with destiny in the "red circle": prisoner - in - transit Gian Maria Volonté, crashing out of the train that’s taking him from Marseilles to Paris; ex - cop Yves Montand, moving from hopeless DT - plagued drunk to dapper, rock - steady sharpshooter; and quintessential Melville anti - hero Alain Delon (Le Samourai), on his first day out of the joint shrugging off two murder attempts and planning his next big job. All join forces for a meticulously orchestrated heist of a Place Vendôme bijouterie, a silent tour - de - force in the grand movie tradition of Rififi, Topkapi, and The Asphalt Jungle.