Le Cercle Rouge

Classed as a caper movie, it's only incidentally about a jewel heist. It could have been about a bunch of guys performing a root canal and still been equally fascinating. And I mean that in a good way. The movie is about how the characters respond to events and each other's actions. They belong to a very ritualistic and honor-bound under-society (of putative gangsters but again could have been any kind of association: masons, astronauts, coffee-klatsch) and that is the real subject. Melville once again contrives some faux Oreintal philosophical window dressing of his own composition. It's the oddest thing.