Super cool hitman. The movie which hits you from the moment it gets started. It doesnt even let you wander off. Perfect pacing. Middle gets a little slow but only because of the pace set from the gigantic beginning. Maybe these super cool and intelligent hitman exicted or maybe not. But the way he is depicted is clear. He is better than all of the goons. He keeps calm even in tense situations. He calculates his moves. He doesnt make rash decisions. He doesnt let anyone bully him. He is a lone warrior. Good thriller story with excellent skills. Visuals are nice. The thrill is set both in beginning and the end, only the middle doesnt follow. Apart from that wonderful. Highly recommend.
Le Samouraï
1967 [FRENCH]
Action / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Plot summary
After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts, finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.
Uploaded by: OTTO
April 16, 2020 at 03:48 PM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Super cool Hitman
An Iconically Silky French Cocktail
Alain Delon has had it. It's 1967, he's sitting on the hot seat of France's famed movie series, Monsieur Cinéma, and he's promoting Le Samouraï. "We have the great pleasure of welcoming Alain Delon to our show," the host says, looking in his guest's direction. "Alain Delon is in the spotlight because 'Le Samouraï' is opening this week." But the ambiance doesn't feel like a respected Inside the Actors Studio precursor; it feels more like a talk show, and Delon isn't in a good mood. He's been better known for his looks than his talents for his entire career. He's proud of the work he has done in acclaimed works like Purple Noon and The Leopard, but he finds himself taken less seriously than he'd like to be simply because he resembles a suave Dolce & Gabbana model. The Male Bardot, they call him.
But he's 32. He doesn't want to be labeled as a pretty boy who somehow gets enviable parts any longer. So instead of saying thank you to his host's polite but slightly condescending introduction, he elaborates on the date of the film's opening. "It's this Wednesday," he smirks. Aware of his guest's snarky mood, the host tries to pick himself back up. "The posters are all over Paris, and they're very striking. 'Le Samouraï', in big, black letters."
"Red," Delon interrupts before his interviewer can even say "letters." He's seen it all before: the host who actually knows nothing about the film but pretends to love it, the host who puts on a grin in order to appease disinterested viewers. Maybe he would have let this fly in the past, but Le Samouraï is far too important to him. He believes it to be a turning point in his undermined career. This isn't just some fluffy movie audiences hear about on a television program like it's Dean Martin's newest vehicle; this is "a work of art," he puts it. "A true auteur film in every aspect."
He goes on to discuss the ins-and-outs of the film with the watchful eye of an obsessed movie buff, and it's unlike anything we've seen Delon do before, personally or professionally. He's always been the confident kid that whisks by with a hint of danger, an exotic woman by his side. This image, along with the entire introduction of this review, may or may not be dramatized speculation on my part, but when I picture Delon, I picture him as the guy from L'Eclisse, fiendishly charismatic but in a tug-of-war between boyhood and the idea of an adulthood in which being taken seriously is everything.
Jean-Pierre Melville uses Delon in a way most directors would be afraid to attempt. Before, Delon's charm was his selling point, but in Le Samouraï, his allure is snatched from him. Melville takes away any ounce of precious dialogue in favor of a more nuanced approach, forcing Delon to embody a particularly cryptic character mostly through body language. In the past, actors in gangster films have been able to mangle the script and somehow spike their delivery to sound more menacing than usual. But Delon has to do something even harder, having to exude invincibility all the while keeping an icy exterior. People turn towards scenery-chewing performances when thinking about characterizations that "moved" them; in contrast Delon has done something masterful with subtlety, undoubtedly more impressive than the booming Shakespearian actors that began to creep out during the 1960s.
We see Costello go through his daily rituals, putting on his trench coat and fedora with strange precision, keying a car to get some extra loot, later pulling a job at a nightclub. Throughout the film, he doesn't show the slightest smidgen of a feeling. Is he numb? In denial? Truthfully, it doesn't matter. Though the storyline sees his normally smooth routine being interrupted by an investigation, he doesn't seem worried about the government closing in on his every move. He is so far into a life of crime that dying for his cause doesn't seem all that bad.
This is probably why the film is called Le Samouraï, as the samurais in all those Asian epics were more than willing to lose their lives in order to appease their reputations and their peers. Unlike Melville's earlier projects, Le Samouraï doesn't have the same blatant criminal romanticism. It's slick and crystalline, yes, but every frame carries enough tension to suggest that Dolph Lundgren might come out of the shadows and Machine Gun Kelly everyone to death. A tragic ending is a given. Silence is cherished in the film; along with Delon's moodless characterization, the facsimile of scenic solitude is furthered. The greyed-out style, Melville's intricate direction, and, of course, Delon's performance, work together with astonishing virtuosity.
The only complaint I ever find myself having with Melville films is how untouchable they are. They feel miles apart from us, detached, so stylish that we grow to be more appreciative than adoring. But there is no denying how great a filmmaker Melville is. "He's the greatest director I've had the good fortune, pleasure, and honor to work with up to this point," Delon dryly gushes later on in the Monsieur Cinéma interview. It sounds dramatic, but sometimes, melodrama can be true. Melville is not just a guy with a dream; he's a visionary, a poet of style.
Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com
"What's four hundred suspects in a city of ten million?"
I'm intrigued by the number of reviews for this film that declare it perfect and the epitome of cool. For a cold, methodical assassin, I thought Jef Costello (Alain Delon) made at least three unforced errors that brought about his eventual downfall. The first and most obvious was when he established his identity with the night club's pianist (Cathy Rosier) by staring her down following the murder of owner Martey. Then, when he was asked by the police to accompany them out of the private card game, Jef automatically went for his coat and hat, which would have been identifying characteristics during the police line-up. Why not just leave them there? And finally, he dumped the bag containing his bloody bandages right out in the street, by this time cognizant of the fact that he was under surveillance by the French police as a murder suspect. So where does this idea come from that he was a consummate professional who was a dozen moves ahead of his adversaries, and never made any mistakes?
While I'm at it, I might as well castigate the police for their lack of professionalism in pursuing their case. The detective who picked up Jef's discarded bag did so with his bare hands, thereby contaminating potential evidence with his own prints. Even worse, another detective did the same thing when handling Costello's gun at the night club at the finale of the story, Again, no safeguard against putting another set of fingerprints on a potential murder weapon. The bigger puzzle of course, and one we have no answer for, is why Jef emptied his weapon prior to entering Martey's for a final confrontation with the witness who lied. One must likely consider Costello's mental status as on the verge of melting down, contrary to everything we knew and felt about the guy as the story progressed.
But even with my criticisms, the film has a way of engaging the viewer in Jef Costello's nourish existence and the police procedural that runs through it's paces to track down a killer. A frightening aspect of that investigation occurred when the Commissioner (François Périer) stated his intent to snare Jef by threatening on and off again girlfriend Jane (Nathalie Delon, Alain Delon's wife at the time) with "The truth is not what you say. It's what I say". By the story's conclusion, the Commissioner does have his way with the truth, but considering my earlier observations, it didn't come as much of a surprise.