Dirty Money
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Movie Reviews of Dirty Money
Movie Review: Minor Masterpiece
Summary: 4 Stars
"Un Flic" (A Cop) the last film by Jean-Pierre Melville begins beautifully. The opening shots set during a storm in an Atlantic coast town in France, which introduced the bank robbery are incredibly beautiful and tense. Melville sets up the scene in such a way that you are on the edge of your seat through out this amazing sequence. The heat of the film is turned up against the contrast of these icy shots and as the story progresses it more or less never lets up and holds it's grip ever tightening as the cop, Alain Delon tracks down the crime ring that is much closer than he thinks.
Extraordinary cinematograph is a highlight of this film and one gets glimpses of watercolor smudged barren streets of Paris in the winter that are gorgeous. This film has its flaws but they are too much of a distraction. Most jarring is the obvious use of models during a very tense scene on the train.
A stunning stand out in the film is Valerie Wilson as Gaby a transvestite who is a stool pidgin for Delon. Touching she is and there is the intriguing undertow of the possibility of romance between the cop and the cross dresser. I am never quite convinced that Delon is merely using her attraction to him to his advantage. Wilson is wonderful in the role, a rare un-judging look at a denizen of this sub-culture.
Delon is Delon, which in my opinion is simply great. Fascinating to watch. Catherine Deneuve is little more that window dressing but a cool dish for the eyes non-the less. The real surprise in the film is Richard Crenna. He looks to be speaking his own lines in French and gives a nuanced wonderful performance as the head of the crime gang. He is utterly watchable and after a few moments you forget he is an American actor in a French film.
Over all "Un Flic" or as it is called here "Dirty Money" is a fun ride for fans of the heist genre. And on a final note, the last shots of the film are raw and haunting.
Movie Review: Melville's last; unfortunately far from this best effort
Summary: 4 Stars
The info shown by Amazon.com for this movie is partly wrong. They seem to have confused the actors' list with those from a similarly-titled movie from 1995.
This is a reissue of Jean-Pierre Melville' last movie "Un Flic". Not as successful or satisfying as "Le Samouraļ" or "Le Deuxième Souffle" for example; Melville himself admitted he rushed into production and should have waited for better conditions and a better subject. It's nevertheless a Melville, which means we get not one but two bravura silent robbery sequence (one at the very beginning of the film as I recall). And there's Alain Delon, the iconic figure from Melville's last period. As for Catherine Deneuve, she gets rather little screen time in this one, but this is one rare instance of a female character in a Melville film.
Despite those reservations, at this price, it's certainly unbeatable for Melville completists, unless Lionsgate decided to play a trick on us like tweaking the aspect ratio or burning in the subtitles (although this practice is not as frequent with US publishers as with French or British ones).
Movie Review: Un flic (1974)
Summary: 4 Stars
According to some bloggers, this a new edition, made by Lions Gate, of "Un flic" (1974), the very last movie of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville ("Bob le Flambeur", "L'armée des ombres", "Le cercle rouge"). Please correct title ("Dirty money") and actors links, mistaken with "Dirty money" (1994). Maybe "Un flic" has not been unanimously appreciated by critics and the box office but there is no doubt that it is a superb film noir done by a genre master, plenty of melancholy. Full of remarkable sequences, such as the opening one, a bank hold-up filmed under the rain. Pay attention to Alain Delon playing the piano at Deneuve's night club. Excellent performance by Richard Crenna.Movie Review: Dirty Delon
Summary: 4 Stars
Delon's a Paris cop two-timing his night-club-owning buddy Richard Crenna by sneaking around with Crenna's girlfriend Denueve. Meanwhile, both of them are hiding their criminal doings from Delon, in this crime film drawn in Melville's gorgeous, steel/blue pallet. Things start off with a beautiful stormswept seaside bank heist. Later, a helicopter to train takedown is laughably rendered with miniatures - not the master's finest hour. But when Delon takes to the streets with an angry scowl or unwinds at the piano - it's tres cool.Movie Review: Fake trains but real automobiles.
Summary: 3 Stars
I watched my first Jean-Pierre Melville film, Le Samourai, a few months ago. His style excited me so I decided I needed to watch everything he'd done. Un flic was my second choice mainly because of Alain Delon.
It opens with the most beautiful bank robbery I've ever seen on film. Melville orchestrates such an elegant gloom; his use of the elements and natural light is remarkable. I was mesmorized immediately and stayed that way throughout most of the movie.
Then came the train heist.
I watched with a friend, and our post-discussion centered directly on how poorly this fairly large chunk of the film was executed. "The train reminded me of the special effects I used to enjoy on Mister Roger's Neighborhood," said my companion. I could only wince and nod. The train was obviously fake, but worse than that was the tiny helicopter hovering overhead. It had the sort of prop strings a VCR would pick up.
(We fabricated a theory about the difficulty of filming this at night because a real helicopter is shown landing in the daylight the following morning. Perhaps this was the problem?)
I hate to pick this movie apart, and I don't mean to deter someone from watching it, but in my opinion this was awkward enough to interrupt the flow of a gorgeous film, hence my three-star rating. Please keep in mind, Dirty Money was filmed in 1972, not 1952. I found the bump unforgivable.
If you're not bothered with this, by all means, buy the movie. The acting is wonderfully calculated and stoic; a glorious Melville constant, from what I hear. Fantastic cars everywhere. Softly resonating street lights pulsing along the Paris cityscape.
...and nobody slaps like Alain Delon.
There are still some treasures here.
- t -
9 July, 2010
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