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Apr 13, 2022 Web Exclusive By Jason Wilson

Criterion’s foray into 4K UHD thus far is relatively limited and a little bit trapped behind the 8-ball. Every month until the company finally debuted the format last fall, fans on social media would bemoan the absence of 4K discs as other distributors like Kino Lorber and Arrow had already dipped their toes into this space. And both have released titles in 4K that Criterion has also released —- KL has a 4K version of The Silence of the Lambs in its catalog while Arrow has David Cronenberg’s Crash.

Now, commenters on Criterion’s social media posts are 85% consummate whiners who are brought to tantrums by every passing day without, say, David Lynch’s Inland Empire or whingeing about how much they hate a particular release’s cover art — seriously, check out Criterion’s posts about June’s release slate and the art for The Worst Person in the World.

Regardless of how late to the game Criterion is — and how impossible to please its fanbase is — the distributor has a murderer’s row of 4K titles that have hit shelves. And Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge, the director’s penultimate film, is no exception. In fact, its presence alone feels at least somewhat miraculous after the prior release went out of print along with a bevy of other StudioCanal titles.

This is about as slick and cool a crime movie as you’ll find and it feels so casually excellent coming from Melville. Corey (played by late-stage Melville mainstay Alain Delon), gets sucked into a “one last job” kind of heist after he’s released from prison broke and with a hit on his head from a former associate — Rico — whom he relieved of some cash and a pistol. By chance, he encounters fugitive Vogel (Gian Maria Volonte, who appeared in a number of Elio Petri films among others), who stowed away in the trunk of Corey’s newly bought car. Vogel saves Corey from a pair of Rico’s thugs, shooting them, and joins the heist plan.

Joining the pair is alcoholic ex-cop Jansen (Yves Montand), who cases a jewelry shop and explains where all the cameras are located and helps form a plan on how to circumvent alarms and other security measures. The heist is the centerpiece of the movie and its mostly silent execution gives more than a passing nod to Jules Dassin’s outstanding and quiet heist at the heart of Riffifi. But it’s more emblematic of the whole than a one-off outlier.

Le Cercle Rouge is a quiet, somewhat stoic movie. It uses dialog sparingly throughout, relying instead on glances, motions, and general physicality. And when your players have such expressive faces as Delon, Montand, and Volonte, you’re in good hands. Jansen’s introduction, for one, has him writhing in bed in the throes of what may be withdrawal-induced hallucinations. He’s disheveled and has vomit on him. Juxtaposed against an almost pristine bedroom, Vogel is clearly fastidious and classy, or at least that’s the image he wishes to project because on the inside he’s bubbling with torment.

And like the heist, Vogel’s escape from custody — from picking the handcuffs, to jumping out the train window, and his subsequent dash through the woods and a stream before hiding in the trunk of Corey’s car — the only constant sound is the barking of search dogs on his trail and the odd one-off between investigators.

The heist movie genre feels like it’s become generally bombastic, more adjacent to blockbuster action movies than anything else. Michael Bay’s new film Ambulance speaks to that somewhat. That’s not necessarily a criticism, but Le Cercle Rouge takes the opposite approach to great effect. It’s patient but never boring, ratcheting tension through its characters’ interiority as they hurtle toward their inevitable conclusions.

The two-disc set (4K and Blu Ray included) is fantastic, but unless you missed out on the original release or are really keen on upgrading everything to 4K then it might be worth skipping. The features are the same so double dipping is unnecessary even if the new transfer is pristine.

If you didn’t pick this up during its initial release — or you sold it off once it went OOP — then absolutely get the new edition, especially if you’re a fan of Melville. And if you have never seen it, it’s worth a blind buy as possibly Melville’s best movie (though there is stiff competition throughout his relatively brief filmography) and one of the premier crime movies of the 1970s.

(www.criterion.com/films/628-le-cercle-rouge)