Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; produced by Robert Dorfmann

Corey (Alain Delon) is just completing his five-year prison sentence when he is approached by a guard with a plan. He is reluctant to return to crime but listens to the scheme anyway. Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte) has just escaped from the custody of Police Commissaire Mattei (Andrei Bourvil), and by chance hides in the trunk of Corey’s car. The two criminals recognise kindred spirits in each other and, with the addition of expert marksman and former cop Jansen (Yves Montand), put the guard’s plan for a multi-million-franc heist into action.

A good crime caper, Le Cercle Rouge is typical Melville fare in that it spends more time with the criminals than with the crime. In fact, just as much time is devoted to the detective on the case. Written by the director, the crooks’ personalities are obscured by a lack of exposition. This is, I am sure, deliberate; these are reticent men who appear dedicated to few things; one of them is crime.

The thieves do not come across as evil, but merely creatures of habit, of their environments. Crime is what they know, so crime is what they do. Corey can’t resist hearing about the guard’s plan. Vogel, when aided by Corey, falls in with the scheme as if he had been part of it from the beginning. Jansen accepts his part as though he were a bureaucrat dealing with paperwork. None of the principals has much of a life beyond what could be termed their trades. Mattei lives with three cats, whom he likes very much. Corey had a girlfriend who now lives with a former associate. Jansen spends his time battling alcoholism. The men’s acceptance of their places in society is foregone.

These bland lives, in which desperation is most assuredly of the quiet variety, are illustrated by the settings. Bare wintery woods, muddy, desolate farm fields, abandoned apartments, give a bleakness to the movie that is a reflection of the characters within it. Only Mattei’s cosy but lonely home seems a pleasant place. It is his refuge; do the criminals think a big score in jewels will provide something similar? We never know.

The acting is very good. Four excellent actors all have major parts, even if a couple could be considered supporting. Delon was, by this time, an experienced veteran of movies, a very popular actor. But he is aging just a little here: 35 years old, moustached to look older, he gives Corey a tired air. Nonetheless, he imbues him as well with professionalism and care toward his trade.

Montand, another famous actor (and singer) but from an earlier generation, was still a leading man in 1970, but makes a supporting rôle memorable. Volonte, like Delon, was very well-known to audiences, and gives Vogel a more anxious persona than has Corey. Bourvil’s Mattei has professionalism hidden in his nondescript approach.

The one problem with Le Cercle Rouge is the heist itself. It is a very complex caper, involving clambering over rooftops, through bathrooms, avoiding electric eyes and shooting out locks; maps, foldable ladders, body-belts. None of this is bad, but I found it hard to believe that they were all encompassed in the guard’s initial explanation, which he begins by telling about his brother-in-law’s new job working on a security system. At no point do we see the criminals collecting blueprints of buildings, or having the route over rooftops pointed out. It seems implausible that this was simply elaborated to Corey in a couple of hours in a prison cell.

Despite this anomaly, Le Cercle Rouge is a good crime film, one that dwells more upon the crime - or crime in general - its essence and nature, rather than the caper, a more contemplative story than many in the genre.