Bob Le Flambeur / Un Flic

Starring: Isabelle Corey, Roger Duchesne Dvd Release: 4th April, 2005 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Full Screen, PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

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Bob le Flambeur is a French gangster film from 1955. The film stars Roger Duchesne as Bob. The black-and-white film noir, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was remade as The Good Thief. The film is considered to be a precursor to the French New Wave movement. // Bob, a middle aged gambler & thief plans a complicated heist. He deals with a number of underworld characters while planning the robbery of the Deauville Casino. Bob eventually hires a gang that includes an ace safe cracker. Unfortunately for them, Bobs nemesis an old cop who Bob once saved from death, is tipped off after a money-hungry croupier s wife betrays them. The police are waiting when the gang begins the seemingly impossible task of robbing the casino vault. Meanwhile in the casino Bob starts to gamble. The film, when released in theathers & when released on DVD in 2005, received positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film 100 percent on its Critics Tomatometer.

Un Flic is a 1972 French film & the last film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The movie stars Richard Crenna, Alain Delon & Catherine Deneuve. Its main plot concerns a bank robbery but it has a subplot concerning drug smuggling. The detective & the gang leader share a love interest. The action is fast paced intermingled with periods of suspense. There is also some interesting character development especially that of the detective who spurns an attractive female impersonator informant who seems to have a crush on him. The supporting actors play fairly strong roles & the black & white film noir photography helps create & sustain the proper mood for this crime thriller.

This dvd release perfectly exemplifies the austere technique & nuances of the godfather of the nouvelle vague, Jean Pierre Melville, arguably the greatest director to grace the crime thriller genre.

Firstly we have the fifties masterpiece, Bob le Flambeur. Bob is an amiable character who lives a superfluous lifestyle governed by his fervent passion for gambling. Together with a couple of his close aquainttances he contrives a plan to rob a casino. One of his sincerest friends is Paulo, a sycophantic kid who is totally adorous of Bob & servile to his every need. However, when Bob encourages him to converse with a young lady he has just met, Paulo falls in love & this proves detrimental to the plan. He confides in the girl concerning the plan who accidentally tells a police informer. Stylised but never glorifying the gangster lifestyle, it is easy to discern an austere yet ineffably warm quality in Melvilles technique which is most enriching. Though thematically similar to the great film noir American movies of the forties, the texture of the cinematography & overall style & feel of the film is unequivocally French. One of the avante guard examples of cinematic cool, Bob le flambeur is one Melvilles finest & an exemplary example of what a crime thriller should be like, unlike nonsensical tosh like Oceans Eleven.

Although Bob le Flambeur is worth the asking price alone, this dvd has another film, Un flic. Although not as consumate as Bob le Flambeur, it is still a little masterpiece of filmmaking that forms an integral part of the directors oeuvre. Visually cold & sometimes desolate, yet still stunning, the film is essentially a meditation on the protagonist who is a cop played by Alain Delon, a man who nonchalantly uses police brutality as if it were the norm. The dialogue & photography is spare & the performances effortlessly cool, Un Flic was Melvilles farewell to the cinema, & an impressive one at that which completed a devestating period in cinema. One dvd, two essential masterpieces.

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