Du Rififi Chez les Hommes
05 Jul 2008 
2 Comments
Oooh, fun, another heist movie. I do so love a good heist movie. This reminded me a lot of another heist movie I saw recently: The Killing (read my review). It has some similar elements, and I enjoyed them both immensely.
Here, we get to meet Tony le Stéphanois (Jean Servais), just out of prison. He hooks up with his friend Jo (Carl Möhner) and an Italian called Mario (Robert Manuel), and the two propose a heist to Tony: to nick some jewels out of the store front window of jeweller Mappin & Webb. Tony declines, saying he’s too old for such a thing. However, Tony finds his old girlfriend has left him while he was in prison and is now with the thug Louis Grutter (Pierre Grasset), owner of a nightclub. Tony reconsiders the heist, but tells his friends that if they’re going to do the job, they may as well do it properly and loot the safe inside the store instead. The three bring in Italian safe specialist Cesar (Dassin himself) and get to work.
This movie was nothing short of brilliant. The first half of the movie follows the team as they plan and carry out the heist. In the second half, it focuses on what goes wrong afterwards.
By far my favourite scene is the heist itself. It clocks in at around the half-hour mark, and throughout there is not a single word spoken, and no music. This enchances the realism of the scene tremendously, since we know that even the smallest sound can mean they get busted. Jo accidentally bumps the piano once or twice, and that chilling simplicity reinforces how serious their need for silence is. Cesar even wears ballet slippers during the whole thing.
And silence is no problem for these guys. They are professionals, and they’re a team. They can work under stress, even if it means toiling away all night in complete silence. There is simply no need to speak — they all know what they have to do, and what’s at stake. The heist is perfectly staged and carried out, and shot brilliantly.
The acting is fantastic, too. I especially liked Dassin’s Cesar and Servais’s Tony. They are all somehow likeable, despite being thugs.
This movie is a gem, and an absolute must if you like crime and heist movies. Superb.
Film Info
I’m such a sucker for these great 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s French gangster movies and this one is a real treat. Dassin was a great director, before Rififi he’d made Night and the City and there followed later Topkapi. I agree, the lengthy silent scene is awesome and you are gripped all the way through it. The film also conveys a great unity between the gang carrying out the heist. Servais is great in probably the most notable role of his career other than his work with Luis Buñuel. If you liked this little gem of a heist movie, then you’ll also probably love Le Clan des Siciliens by Henri Verneuil, starring the ever so cool Alain Delon, the legends Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura and the music by Ennio Morricone.
Thanks for those recommendations. I definitely want to check out some of those, and want to add to that list Le Cercle Rouge.