Le Cercle Rouge(Le Cercle rouge)

L.A. Weekly by

Melville seems to peer out from behind the camera with a reassuring wink and nod. Le Cercle Rouge is the most self-consciously cool of his famously underheated films noirs.

Chicago Reader by Bill Stamets

Key action points are edited with finesse, but the denouement, with its dutiful hail of gunfire, is heartless and mechanical.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

A glistening gem among caper movies, this impeccably elegant jewel-heist drama takes its title from Buddhist lore, its cast from France's great gallery of leading men, and its style from the unique blend of cinematic savoir-faire and brooding existential angst.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

For students of cool ... Le Cercle Rouge is required viewing.

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

A work of leisurely development and tragic inevitability.

New York Daily News by Jack Mathews

If you've got the patience, this is still one of the all-time exercises in cinematic cool.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

Watching Le Cercle Rouge, we're caught up in a world that, however improbable some of its twists and turns seem, strikes us as a perfect, imaginative creation.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer

At its best, the film compares favorably to its obvious antecedents, "Rififi" (which Melville once hoped to direct) and "The Asphalt Jungle."

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

There is one cool, understated scene after another.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

For some of us, this constitutes a religious event.