The French make the best heist movies. Thats just a fact. And Jean-Pierre Melville makes the best French heist movies. Also a fact. Its just that the French are so damn understated and nonchalant about the whole ordeal. They just sort of casually break into a jewellery store wearing glorious trench coats and flawlessly trimmed moustaches, steal a lot of diamonds to give to their mistresses and then go home for some cassoulet and a cheeky Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The heist itself is played in full and goes for about twenty minutes, all in perfectly measured, near wordless French cool. They cut glass windows with those little circular devices that only exist in movies about stealing something, they dodge invisible alarms and dangle from the roof whilst being completely blasé about the entire situation. All without ever ruffling their hair or dropping their cigarette. At it's core though, Le Cercle Rouge is about antiheroes; whether it's the master criminal just of jail, the alcoholic ex-cop who's turned to crime or his relentless replacement of an inspector but every single character is trapped and defined by their past. It determines their present and their future. They steal because they have always stolen. These men are criminals because they are criminals, it isn't about getting rich or beating the system or getting your ex back from her new successful boyfriend, it's about their human nature.
