Un Flic (1972) ***
Jean-Pierre Melville's final film, Un Flic (A Cop) (1972), isn't so much a dud as it is a case of missed potential. It has all the elements one would expect from his work (crime, slow pace, short bursts of action/violence, detached/cool characters, style), but it executes them in a haphazard manner.
Where Le Samouraï (1967) (my review here) defined cool with its sparseness and design, Un Flic feels like a half-hearted attempt at the same template. Where in the former film Alain Delon oozed charisma, here he feels like he's sleepwalking through the movie. Sure, it's interesting to see his role reversed—where he was a criminal in Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge (1970) (my review here), here he is the titular cop. But he's too thinly drawn, as are all the characters. Richard Crenna is solid as the leader of multiple heists—the first one pretty unexciting, the second a bit more tense but hampered by some seriously cheesy low budget f/x (for a truly thrilling ~20-min "silent" heist, see Rififi (1955) (my review here)). Catherine Deneuve plays Crenna's mole in a terribly throwaway part.
There are certainly things to appreciate in Un Flic, and it is not a "bad" film, per se, but with so many similarities to Melville's other, better, pictures, it is just a shame that his swan song wasn't more exciting.
You can find my Jean-Pierre Melville Feature Films Ranked list here.
Where Le Samouraï (1967) (my review here) defined cool with its sparseness and design, Un Flic feels like a half-hearted attempt at the same template. Where in the former film Alain Delon oozed charisma, here he feels like he's sleepwalking through the movie. Sure, it's interesting to see his role reversed—where he was a criminal in Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge (1970) (my review here), here he is the titular cop. But he's too thinly drawn, as are all the characters. Richard Crenna is solid as the leader of multiple heists—the first one pretty unexciting, the second a bit more tense but hampered by some seriously cheesy low budget f/x (for a truly thrilling ~20-min "silent" heist, see Rififi (1955) (my review here)). Catherine Deneuve plays Crenna's mole in a terribly throwaway part.
There are certainly things to appreciate in Un Flic, and it is not a "bad" film, per se, but with so many similarities to Melville's other, better, pictures, it is just a shame that his swan song wasn't more exciting.
You can find my Jean-Pierre Melville Feature Films Ranked list here.
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