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Rating:  - Slow, Dark and Brooding - Somewhat Disappointing
OK, I can see how this film is a classic and how important it must have been in 1972 when it was released. It is beautifully filmed (especially the opening seaside scenes surrounding the bank robbery) and shares glimpses of a warm and inviting early-70s Paris, which is great.
Richard Crenna as a French criminal is a bit hard for me to swallow.
Alain Delon's character is cold and mean and elicits no sympathy or understanding from me.
I was but a toddler when this film came out so I came of age with MTV, etc. Perhaps my youth causes my attention to be fleeting... The long, slow, no-dialog scenes in this film are tedious in my opinion. Mildly tough to sit through.
I should also deride the silly special effects in this film. Part of the story involved a spectacular train robbery. Most of the exterior scenes of this robbery were done with a toy train set in a crude model landscape. Indeed the toy train is being shadowed by a plastic helicopter with a visible cable holding it in place. Just 4 years later Star Wars was released - surely the state of the art for movie special effects in 1972 would have allowed a more realistic train/helicopter chase sequence.
Rating:  - Flawless
This is an absolutely brilliant film, a French heist flick that really delivers. Delon is perfectly cast as the hard-bitten cop who doesn't hesitate to smack anyone around whom he thinks holds out on him. Richard Crenna, as the suave nightclub owner-master thief, is just as convincing. And it's fun to see Michael Conrad, duty sergeant on Hill Street Blues, as the getaway driver who's laconic and tough. Although in a relatively small role, Catherine Deneuve also hits the mark as the woman the thief and the cop both dig.
In fact, this is a laconic tough movie, and that's all to the good. When you see a beautiful woman administer a lethal dosage, you know you're watching the work of a director who doesn't flinch when it comes to portraying toughness. It's really a shame this was Melville's last film; it would have been fascinating to see what he would and could have done had he lived longer.
At the same time, when you also see the tough cop playing a sentimental jazz ballad on a nightclub piano, you know this is a film that doesn't wear its heart on its sleeve, but that definitely has one. It's the combination of this toughness and tenderness that makes the film sing--and zing. And the train heist (of drugs, not money) is a marvel to behold.
Here's a French film that everyone who thinks French films are all about romance or zany sex romping should definitely see. It's unsparing, it's stronger than dirt, and it is way cool, brother.
Nab it.
Rating:  - REAL FRENCH NOIR
An unusually stylish action-suspense-crime film, the noirish UN FLIC is the last movie from Jean-Pierre Melville, one of the great French directors of the 50s and 60s. Melville has been called the creator of the modern gangster film and a major influence on such directors as Martin Scorsese, John Woo and Quentin Tarantino. This great looking widescreen transfer is especially fine-tuned to the muted shades of night and fog. Richard Crenna is a nightclub owner and the fearless, brilliant head of a gang of bank robbers. When they knock over a small bank, one of them is wounded. Soon burned-out detective Alain Delon, Crenna's old friend, takes an interest in the case and begins piecing the puzzle together. Meanwhile, Crenna, using the stolen loot plans a much bigger heist of a trainload of mob money. And, as fate would have it, both men continue a serious, secretive, relationship with Catherine Deneuve. Get the picture? The almost unbearable tension builds as the vectors of friendship, love and betrayal inexorably converge and meet in a memorable and hard-boiled finale. Released in America as "Dirty Money," this is the director's original cut. "Un flic" translates as "the cop." Recommended.
Rating: - The Real McCoy
The thirteenth and final film by the great French director Jean-Pierre Melville is a stripped-to-the-bone heist movie with minimal dialogue, super-cool performances, audacious set-pieces and one or two smashing surprises, such as the presence of American actors Richard Crenna and Michael Conrad (of Hill Street Blues' "Let's be careful out there" fame)who are either speaking perfect French or dubbed so expertly you can't tell the difference. Either way, they blend seamlessly into the Melville house-style of brooding close-ups, honour among thieves and action so stylised it almost becomes abstract. Alain Delon plays a Paris cop embroiled in a weird romantic triangle with superthief Crenna and Catherine Deneuve at her most fabulously glacial. There are daring robberies in a seafront bank and on a train(OK so some of the model shots are a bit iffy, but we're talking 1972 after all), a wonderful stake-out in a cafe, great early 70s fashions and decor and lots and lots of "mecs" with obligatory Melville accessories of raincoats and guns. Plus a hilarious last deadpan scene involving a piece of chewing-gum. Tarantino eat your heart out - this is the real McCoy, or the real Melville, at any rate. Aficionados of heist movies should definitely check it out.
Rating: - A great french director
Another great film of Melville. « Un Flic » is the latest film of Jean-Pierre Melville, the famous French director of the 50s and 60s. It's the last but not the least. This film shows particularily well the style of the master which is very sensitive to the nights and gangsters'atmosphere. As it was the case for The Samuraï and for The Red Circle or The Army of Shadows, the story is brilliant and the thrill upon the characters is so high that the viewer feels in. Alain Delon is excellent as usual, Catherine Deneuve and Richard Crenna appears in mysterious roles. You won't regret to buy this VHS because Melville is now considered as a master for directors like John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, or even Martin Scorcese.
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