User Reviews

All right, all right, so "Un Flic" is "flawed" and not on the same level as "Le Samouraï" -- but then how many films are? Yes, it's "flawed", obsessive, ambitious, made by an artist who was on top of the world after a succession of critical and box-office hits and probably felt like risking more -- and he did! It's also unique, mesmerizing, to be watched over and over again. And (as always with Melville) it's cinema in its purest, most uncompromising form.

"Un Flic" was Melville's last film, made one year before his sudden, fatal heart attack. It's ambitious all right: it stars France's top stars of the 1970s (Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve, she in a supporting role at a time when she NEVER did supporting roles); and for the first time -- probably with an eye on the US market -- Melville uses an American star, Richard Crenna, who delivers his lines in absolutely fluent French (though post-dubbed for accent reasons)

Talk about ambition and risk: Melville includes not one but TWO 20- minute-long, no-dialog, no-music heist scenes! The first one at the bank, by the rainy seashore, is a masterpiece of efficiency and atmosphere. Sadly, the second one with the helicopter/train is THE major flaw of the film, with its phony Thunderbird-like miniature models, especially difficult to accept in these our times of eye-popping CGI effects. It's also too long, it should have stayed out, though one can argue that it's probably the best-lit-miniature-model-heist-scene ever filmed!:)))

The plot in "Un Flic" is a pretext to present the duel between the two complex male characters: Alain Delon's ideal cop made in Noir Heaven, and Richard Crenna's mastermind-thief-posing-as-charming-night-club-owner. They're on opposite sides, but Melville wants us to notice their similarities: their striking physical resemblance (they could be brothers), their camaraderie (Delon can only relax at Crenna's classy joint), their sharing the same woman (Deneuve). They're both cool, elegant, efficient gentlemen, who use violence only as a last resource (though the violence here is implicit, with hardly a drop of blood in view, unlike bloodbath fiends and pseudo Melville fans Scorsese, Tarantino and Woo). They're both art connoisseurs and sensitive to beauty: Crenna goes to the Louvre, admires Van Gogh's self-portrait and wears top fashion; Delon plays jazz on the piano proficiently, dresses impeccably (for a cop) and recognizes a Maillol sculpture when he sees one. But they can also be tough as hell: Crenna doesn't blink when he plans the death of his wounded sidekick at the hospital, and Delon coldly waits for a man to commit suicide instead of preventing it.

Tough as they are, they're surprisingly open-minded when it comes to sex: Delon treats the robbed old homosexual and his teenage lover/thief with unflappable professionalism and even politeness, and is perfectly aware of the transvestite informer's crush on him (the transvestite's makeup and hair color resemble Deneuve's; insinuations galore). And in a revealing, silent scene at the bar, we can tell that the Deneuve-sharing is not an issue (yet).

But in Melville's world, affinities, friendship and "modern" sexual morals collapse when the code of honor between males is broken. Delon is OK with gay people and ménages-à-troi but not with Crenna betraying his trust and fooling him professionally. The Melville code comes from Westerns and Samurai movies; the price of betrayal is death. When Delon realizes he's been double-crossed, there's no place for mercy or compromise in his heart; revenge is the only way out, AND he has the law on his side.

A word about the acting: perhaps Delon doesn't seem very excited to play a cop -- who does? -- but his last 15 minutes are simply magnificent: just watch his face at the bar when he realizes Crenna is lying; it melts down with painful disillusion. And in the last scene over the closing credits, he drives his car drained of all life; he's broken inside, terribly lonely, an empty carcass. Crenna is subtle and properly sympathetic: cop-hater Melville clearly wants us to root for him. Apparently, Deneuve is there just to parade her amazing beauty, but check out the hospital "coup de grâce" scene: no angel of death was ever colder, blonder, more efficient or gorgeous. It makes us think once again what a shame she never worked for Hitchcock!

The visual pleasures in "Un Flic" are so many that multiple viewings are required: the elegant decors, the fabulous cars (that silver Jaguar!), the chic wardrobe and the city of Paris at its most stunning. There's a telling scene at the Louvre where Melville seems to be comparing himself to the great impressionists: his camera lingers on a painting with a very similar palette as his own (icy blues, pale gris, cold grays). It's a "coup de vanité" from a man who -- like the greatest visual artists -- managed to create an instantly recognizable world of his own through his obsessive themes, unique visual expression and fabulous technique.

The only way you can dislike "Un Flic" is if you're addicted to hyperactive, loud, chopped films; if you can appreciate moderato-paced subtlety and unique visual sophistication, you can do no wrong with this film. Melville's "flawed" work towers over thousands of brainless, spineless, bloody thrillers –- after all, "Un Flic" is signed by the one and only King of Cool. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Just confirming what others have posted, this is not Melville's best effort. Minimalism is one thing, you don't have to connect every dot for us. But you DO have to give us enough dots to work with to come up with a worthwhile film, and that's the problem here. There is so little dialogue in the film, it nearly qualifies as a silent movie. We know and learn almost nothing about the three leads from film start to end; why is American Crenna a Paris gangster, why is he friends with Delon, and exactly how does Ms. Deneuve fit into the triad? Just a little backstory would have made everyone more interesting and worthy of our attention.

I knew going in the helicopter/train set piece would be underwhelming, but a couple of times I laughed out loud at just how lame it was. I kept looking for the strings to indicate that it was an outtake from the old Thunderbirds series. And the whole sequence really does take an awfully long time, it almost feels like padding.

When this film first began, I was pretty pleased. I loved the dialog and the look of the crooks (with trench coats and fedora hats)--it was almost like a late 40s-50s example of film noir but in color. It's obvious that director Melville was trying to copy, to an extent, this retro look and style.

If you are an American, the first thing you'll probably notice apart from some noir touches is that two of the gang members in this film are American actors whose lines are all dubbed into French. Richard Crenna and Michael Conrad (from "Hill Street Blues") have major parts in the film. This isn't super surprising as it was pretty common in Europe for studios to use American actors and dub their lines--especially in Italian films. My assumption is that the American actors' star power helped ticket sales, though in some of these cases the actors did NOT contribute well to the film. In some cases this is because the dubbing was done very poorly--fortunately, in this film it's pretty good.

The film consists of showing the crime and investigation from two alternating views--the crooks and the cop (Alain Delon). The film bounces back and forth quite often but manages to do this effectively. The caper is a bank robbery in which one of the gang members is shot. However, it's clear they are professionals and they've taken a lot of steps to cover their tracks and effectively hide the loot. Interestingly, however, there turn out to be a few twists. First, the initial robbery was not THE big score in the film--this would come later. Second, while the scene made little sense (why sneak into a hospital to kill a guy you could have killed much easier before YOU dropped him off at the hospital in the first place?!), it was an wild twist to see how the handled the gang member who was shot. This scene with the beautiful Catherine Deneuve was quite shocking...and effective. Third, Delon's role turns out to intersect with the gang in a way you might not expect.

Unfortunately, while the film is handled very well in most ways and shows how wonderfully you can make a film with such economy of language (there is VERY little dialog in the film), a major problem in the movie starts at the 53 minute point. The action switches to a train and you see one of the sloppiest uses of models I've seen since the last time I watched a Godzilla film! It looks just a kid's HO-gauge train set and a cheap helicopter model---which is exactly what they must be! Pretty sloppy. What also bothers me about this is that I noticed some score of 10 among the reviews. How can you give a film a 10 with such sloppy effects? I don't expect mega-million dollar effects, but this was just botched badly and looks bad...and a 10 would seem to imply perfection or at least near-perfection. Plus, plot-wise, don't you think someone on the train would have noticed a helicopter hovering just a few yards above the train for so long?! Fortunately, following these dumb scenes the film DID get better! Up until the silly scenes, I might have given this film a 9. However, considering how many scenes were done with crappy looking models, I think a fair overall score is 7 as it still held my interest. Pretty good and with a lot of potential to be a lot better--unfortunately, it's not among Melville's best though it turned out to be his last.

I don't think that anyone who admires and respects Melville approaches this, his last film, more than probably aware of the negative notices and general feeling of disappointment, prepared to add another voice to the chorus of condemnation. One approaches - or should approach - it in search of positives and hoping against all the evidence to find something worthwhile. The opening augurs well, a brilliant set piece involving a small crew, a bank, an off-season seaside town, raw, blustery weather, and muted pastel photography. For reasons never made clear the leader of the gang, Richard Crenna, is a minor American actor who is dubbed. Melville of course made no secret of his admiration for Hollywood gangster movies so maybe he hired Crenna - when there were dozens of equally talented French actors available - as a form of indulgence. Almost inevitably the heist goes wrong leaving one of the gang badly wounded and then the eponymous character, Edouard the cop (Alain Delon) appears in what at first seems to be a parallel story emphasizing the boring routine of police work. If you're a candidate for Mensa you will eventually work out that Delon and Crenna are friends and that they share a girl friend, Catherine Deneuve, though it remains ambiguous whether or not any of the three realize the full extent of the twisted relationship. Melville also indulges his love of American Jazz by having Delon play an acceptable piano in the club owned by Crenna. The second set piece involving a train, a helicopter, and a courier is great on paper but almost risible in practice with little or no attempt to disguise the models involved. On balance this is a film that all Melville admirers will want to see ....Once.

Immortality followed by death, like Parvulesco said. Rumour has it that Melville was dissatisfied with this film. Can't see why. Not long ago I bought the 6 DVD set of his flicks from 1956 – 1972. All masterful, but this is the one I keep coming back to, and I do think I think of it as a pinnacle of his metier.

What does Melville mean by invoking "Ambiguity and Derision" over the opening credits ? It's as though he's talking to himself all through the narrative, from beginning to end. The initial scene is one of the most hypnotic I've ever seen. Charged with palpable, palpitating tension, yet at the same time unnervingly surrealistic --- not Dali, more reminiscent of Magritte or Giorgio de Chirico --- it leaves Hitchcock standing in the suspense stakes.

The action begins with the Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. It is virtually certainly the Esplanade de la Mer, on France's Atlantic western coastline, abutting the Bay of Biscay, known throughout history as a stormy quarter of the ocean. That esplanade is near St Jean de Monts, between Brest and Bordeaux, and not far from La Roche-sur-Yon. Nowadays there's a golf course just north of St Jean de Monts. The names of these real places are supplied by the cinematography. Realistic surreality is also supplied, by the vast condominium block, presumably only just completed, in 1971, and still unoccupied. Although there was perhaps one inhabited window.

The fag-end of the day's weird financial activity in the corner BNP (not the British Nazi Party, of course) bank-shop is bizarre. Who are these glum people executing enigmatic transactions ? Where do they live ? How did they get to be there on what appears to be one of early January's most miserable afternoons ? It's riveting.

Skip now to the sequence on which so many have hanged themselves up. This is the insanely planned and impeccably executed robbery from a suitcase, minded on a moving train by Bagman Matthieu, of a large number of plastic packages filled with a powdery white substance. All film plots are completely phony, riddled with holes, but except for here, they fake reality. Melville, however, is deliberately saying that he knows you ought to know it's completely ridiculous: take a good, long, very long look at the dinky toys, the Hornby train set, the plastic manikin. Verfremdungseffekt, as one perceptive commentator puts it. Why ? But then, why not ? It's just a movie. Think about it. Flickering images in two dimensions.

What a phenomenal masterpiece this film is. You can see it must be, when you read the numerous failed reviews. Here's something for chewing on: "By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and 'fictive' qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the action as mere 'entertainment.' Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative. This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions." Why use five words, when fifty will do ?