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Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent adaptation.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

What a sad and puzzling film. I loved the chiaroscuro atmosphere, sultry molls, honor/dishonor among thieves, and hard-bitten cops. The story can be very hard to keep straight, though the confusion helped to keep things interesting. Luckily, I was watching this on the Sundance Channel so through repeated rewinding I managed to grasp the basic narrative. The movie is best at keeping you guessing. Where do the characters' loyalties really lie? Just when you think you have someone figured out, the rug gets pulled out from under you, and you're trying to get oriented all over again. Silien is an unforgettable hero or villain. After all my rewinding, I still can't nail him. He constantly surprised, repulsed, stunned, and provoked head-scratching. I thought the film left a few important questions dangling. I didn't get the part about the "wreath" inmate at all. And why on earth was he present in the penultimate scene? (Was Maurice ultimately bent on double-crossing his only friends?) Unlike the ambiguity elsewhere in "Le Doulos," this fuzziness detracted from an excellent film, but who could dwell on it with Silien's final scene. What is he, fundamentally -- the world's most courteous gentleman caller?

An interesting film noir that has all the elements one would expect of the gems of the 40s and 50s made in Hollywood: trench coat, hat, and gun.Serge Reggiani is Maurice. Just released from prison, it is not long before he is set up by his supposed friend Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo).The cops are looking for who shot one of their own and who shot a fence. There is a lot of double crossing going on among the thieves.The look and feel of the film is spectacular. The big cars, the scenes, the great music: it all works to make for an excellent noir experience.The ending really surprises in a way I did not expect. Well, if I expected it, it wouldn't be a surprise would it? Just when everything gets tied together, it all comes undone again.Damn, the music was perfect.

Jean-Pierre Melville's direction is a glorious tribute to classic American crime films of the 1940's and early 50's but has also a strong touch of originality. The story is set in the early 1960's Paris, but these criminals seem to live in a world of their own. It's a Hollywood film-noir underworld, where men constantly wear hats and trench coats like Humbrey Bogart, brandishing revolvers, drinking bourbon or scotch and driving big American cars, that look like tanks compared to small ordinary European vehicles around. The overall mood is dark and threatening and with the right kind of lightning and photography many scenes seem like epitomes of the best stuff the genre has ever offered.Compared to its predecessors The Fingerman gives some new shine to the term 'hard boiled'. Women can still be fatal femmes in some sense, but mostly they get pushed around and are allowed attention only when men really need them. They are only there to pass information and sexual favors, nurse wounds and serve as minor helping hands. And when it comes to violence, they get the same rough treatment as any man.Belmondo's role leans heavily to Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) in John Huston's adaption of 'The Asphalt Jungle', only with a more visible dark side. His character is a strange and hypnotic mixture of honesty, treachery and bursts of sadistic violence. The way his tone of voice changes to more tender just before assault or murder is gripping. Serge Reggiani, although equally capable to violence, seems more mature and easier to identify with. Both men strongly overpower the happenings but not their own destinies. Fate still has its usual final word, as anyone familiar with characteristics of the genre well knows.The plot with several flashbacks and changes of time and place may feel a little complex at the beginning, but opens up to be a very rewarding movie experience towards the end. This film easily equals and even surpasses many of its obvious paragons. Of the few Melville's films I have seen at this point this one became an instant favorite in a single viewing even beating the almighty Le Samurai. Very warmly recommended.

This film is a 1960s version of an American Film Noir flick. However, as it was made a little later and due to French sensibilities, there were some differences. First, the film was even more brutal, as one woman got beaten very convincingly and cruelly on film and another guy had a bloody bullet pulled from his shoulder. I didn't really mind these details too much, as the characters WERE bad people and you could easily see them behaving that way. Also, because this was created in the midst of the French New Wave, the camera work was a little fuzzier and cheaper than a polished Hollywood film. This isn't' necessarily worse--just different in style--sort of like some of Sam Fuller's films. The only real problems I had with the film is that the plot was a little confusing (probably less so if you are French) and there are many earlier, American Film Noir pictures that are simply better. This isn't to say this is a bad film--it's pretty good. It's just that I didn't feel it offered any sort of improvement over earlier works such as The Killers, DOA, Kiss of Death or any number of other Film Noir flicks.