Le Doulos (2007)

French detective stories have two trademarks: 1. If somebody walks or drives a car, it should continue at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile the viewer can go to the rest room and come back without losing anything. 2. Complete disregard of details and plausibility. This movie is full of it. For instance, the hero is shot in the shoulder. There's no blood and no hole in his coat. Later he's shown on the bed with an infusion. Suddenly, he decides to stand up and go away. He wrenches out the infusion tube from his vein, and again no blood shows up. Such a bloodless individual! However, when another hero is shot, the blood spurts out from the hole like a fountain without leaving any spot on the coat. The hole is exactly in the middle of his coat, so his spinal cord should've been smashed to smithereens. But that hero is able to walk and even make a call. In another scene he shoots two gangsters and places two guns with no finger prints on them next to the bodies. Apparently French police should believe that the gangsters accurately wiped out their fingerprints just before becoming cold. Maybe people love this fairy tale. But they could watch the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. It's much more plausible than this movie.

The French may or may not have invented film noir, but they certainly refined it. This film is no exception. For anyone who enjoys hard boiled crime fare, this film will be another feather in your cap. The plot concerns a petty thief (Jean Paul Belmondo)who did a hitch in prison for theft, gets involved in another caper right straight away. Jean Pierre Melville (who directed such noir fare as Army Of Shadows) shows a fine hand for dealing with the dregs of society in a film that is handsomely shot in atmospheric black & white. The print I had the pleasure to see is a brand new 35mm print that is a treat to behold on a cinema screen,proper. Belmondo,as well as the principal male cast members play the swine to perfection.

Made at pretty much the halfway point between Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1955) and Le Samourai (1967), Le Doulos contains elements of both. Belmondo plays Silien, a man thought by some to be a police informer. ("Doulos" means informer or Finger Man, which is the title in English.) Reggiani plays Maurice, who has just gotten out of prison and is getting involved with another robbery attempt. His friend Silien offers to help, and the film revolves around the tension over whether Silien is an informant or not. It's another exploration by Melville of the grey area between those who enforce the law and those who break it, of the uneasy yet powerful relationships that can develop between people on "opposite" sides of the line.Belmondo and Reggiani are both excellent. The black and white photography by Nicholas Hayer - who also did Cocteau's Orphée and Clouzot's Le Corbeau - is superb, from the wonderfully atmospheric opening sequence (Melville may be THE master of opening sequences) to the stunning, Cocteau-like shot of a man staring into a mirror that closes the film. The plot line gets a bit complicated at times, with rival gangs, a previous jewel heist, murder, betrayals, love affairs, etc. Hard to follow. Which is to say, it's a classic example of film noir. And the jazzy soundtrack by Paul Misraki heightens the cool, noirish sensibility of the film. Whatever his failings as a director, Melville definitely knew how to create a great atmosphere.Le Doulos is definitely worth checking out, especially by fans of film noir, Melville or Belmondo.

Themes of trust, betrayal, friendship and masculinity are all dealt with in this story. Maurice has just been released from prison but does not appear to have learnt anything as he immediately murders his friend Gilbert then goes on to attempt another robbery. His friend Silien attempts to help him stay clean but these attempts are met with animosity on Maurice's part and he even goes as far as to hire a hit-man to kill Silien before he realises that he is a true friend; or is he? No full answers are ever given which leads the viewer to create their own conclusions.Jean Pierre Melville has created a wonderful film which has references to the classic American film noir of the 1950's but also creates a wonderfully fresh French example of the deconstruction of the gangster image and masculinity itself.Jean Paul Belmondo is wonderful, sexy and exiting in his depiction of Silien and Serge Reggiani plays Maurice perfectly by brooding his way through the entire film.This film is a must see for all fans of the gangster genre. Tarantino has used many of the elements of Melville's work in his own so it will seem really familiar to you if you are a Tarantino fan.