Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.
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What critics compared Le Cercle Rouge to
Some of its self-assured cool comes courtesy of the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, who pioneered the subgenre of the existential hit man movie with Le Samouraï , and whose Le Cercle Rouge receives an homage in Wick in the form of a nightclub called the Red Circle.
Although Thief does not necessarily offer anything new narratively or thematically—it is very much a reworking of the classic heist film and all those heady existential European crime movies like Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge (1970) with additional emphasis on the politics of class—Mann shapes the material in a way that makes it feel sharp and innovative.
Le Cercle Rouge is cool, heck, I may not like it but Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is a movie that wants to be seen as cool.