Jef Costello is a very talented
and successful assassin, but on his latest job things start to go south
quickly.
Auteur Jean-Pierre Melville
is one of the greatest French filmmakers of the 1960s, with films like Le Deuxieme Souffle, Le
Samourai, Army of
Shadows (which is my favorite), and Le Cercle Rouge. He was a
master of character-driven crime dramas. On this film he worked with composer Francois de Roubaix, cinematographer
Henri Decae (who came up in
France’s New Wave), and production designer Francois de Lamothe.
Like many of Melville’s late films,
Alain Delon
stars.
Le Samourai epitomizes cool. Everything
about Delon’s Costello is cool. Plus, Melville directs with such a steady hand.
He is unafraid to let the film simmer towards its brilliant climax. The pacing
is slow, so it may not be for everyone, but for those that do like great crime
dramas this is certainly one of the best in cinema history.
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