As a big Melville fan, I found this somewhat disappointing.

This has the same signature cold style I love in many of his other movies, but the plot isn’t as gripping as his other films. It does have some technical sequences that are extremely impressive, but didn’t give me as much reason to care about its characters.

Part of it (which is partially my problem) is I was mixing up the characters all the time. There’s groups of men in trench coats all the time, and I was confused who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. 

Don’t know how they got Catherine Deneuve to show up for a small supporting role but that was a fun surprise!

Still recovering from THAT movie

Films like Le Samourai showed Melville was what would many will call "an auteur". He has a style of its own, that style will either make it or break it for everyone.

So what's that style, you may be asking? Well, there's an almost 20 mins greatly choreographed heist scene that has almost no dialogue and zero music. The complete opposite from what you will expect from a heist or suspended movie at the moment, this gives a sense of realism.

All performances are as well as quite, but very good. Seeing often bad guy Alain DeLeon playing for the good guys was really nice.

All in all, while it's very quite nature didn't align with my more bombastic and kinetic taste, this is still a nice and stylistic suspense/cop movie.

Melville's final film... i almost want to call it his TO THE WONDER, despite not having seen TO THE WONDER. this isn't exactly the forum for vetting the unfounded bullshit that wanders through my mind during a movie. Melville seems a bit caught up in the inertia of his own craft, or maybe i'm just put off by such scattered messiness from a man best known for fetishizing precision. here he again explores the moral equivalency of a world so cold that i can't imagine a trench coat ever managed to keep someone warm. Catherine Deneuve with a pistol clutched to her ribs helps finds Melville's jazz noir stylings already in the process of being reborn as kitsch, charmingly helped along by silly analog effects (like the helicopter heist, which disguises its model work about as well as the opening scenes of THE LADY VANISHES some 4 decades prior).

"The only feelings mankind has ever inspired in policemen are those of indifference and derision."

Un Flic is an brilliant heist film that really delivers. Alain Delon is perfectly cast as the hard-bitten cop, who doesn't hesitate to smack anyone around whom he thinks holds out on him. Richard Crenna as the suave nightclub owner-master thief is just as convincing. Catherine Deneuve also hits the mark as the woman the thief and the cop both dig. Overall, it's really a shame this was Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, it would have been fascinating to see what he would and could have done had he lived longer.

Jean-Pierre Melville was the absolute master of cinematic cool. It's quite sad that this was his final outing, but one can undoubtedly pick up on the pieces that it left for future crime films from both narrative and stylistic points of view. The train sequence is simply a marvel to watch!

question #23:
who said “my, what pretty eyes you have…”?

a) jean-pierre melville
b) sergio leone
c) the big bad wolf
d) every single freaking one of them probably

*
( fabricated reality )

Please note this is a review of a movie, not a law enforcement officer. Please see my account at Blotterboxd for police reviews

The world as seen through the blue eyes of Alain Delon's frighteningly cold detective. The criminals are introduced as fedora wearing silhouettes in a car, a powerfully mysterious image that sets the quiet, cool tone of everything that follows. My favorite scene is a very long take of a man changing clothes and hiding evidence as part of an elaborate train heist. I know this is the kind of thing that drives some people (hi Matt!) crazy with boredom, but to me it shows such a respect for criminal enterprises as a skilled trade, as labor.

Cold-blooded & arrogant police commissioner vs dashing robber & club owner. 
Last Melville isn’t his best, but solid.
Toy helicopter on wire however is laughable.

Borefest

Feels cold and soulless which makes sense considering how close Melville was to death

Pausing in the middle of a HELICOPTER TRAIN HEIST so the lead criminal can straighten his hair and change his shoes is the most Jean-Pierre Melville shit ever

Enjoyable b-side of Melville's. The overall scenario and the main heist isn't up to the standards I expect of him, but there are many enjoyable moments and some that show the greatness especially in the early parts.

Un bon film noir de Melville avec Alain Delon. Un premier casse qui donne lieu à une affaire d’extorsion de traffic de drogue. Le trio ( flic : Alain Delon ) - bandit Richard crenna tout deux amoureux de Catherine Deneuve fait de ce polar un très bon Melville

"The only feelings mankind has ever inspired in policemen are those of indifference and derision."

Un Flic is an brilliant heist film that really delivers. Alain Delon is perfectly cast as the hard-bitten cop, who doesn't hesitate to smack anyone around whom he thinks holds out on him. Richard Crenna as the suave nightclub owner-master thief is just as convincing. Catherine Deneuve also hits the mark as the woman the thief and the cop both dig. Overall, it's really a shame this was Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, it would have been fascinating to see what he would and could have done had he lived longer.

J’aime ces scènes où les regards laissent la place aux dialogues et renvoient une tension palpable, l’atmosphère glaçante qui pèse pendant tout le film, le tout sublimé par un jeu d’acteur (de Delon, Crenna et Deneuve) irréprochable. 
Le film a plusieurs défauts (que nombreux ont déjà relevés) mais mon esprit critique est passé à côté et je suis, au contraire, restée captivée jusqu’à la fin.

C'est incroyable

Farewell film by maestro Melville (1917-1973), shot in gray-blue graveyard tones, about a cop Coleman (Delon) and his course to complete disillusionment. Coleman has an affair with Cathy (Deneuve), the mistress of nightclub owner and gangster Simon (Crenna). Gangster Simon (Crenna) appears to be involved in a double coup: a bank robbery and a drug robbery from a train. Like Le samouraï, Un flic is the psychogram of a lonely wolf, love tragedy and genre pearl in one. Only stupid thing in the movie is the use of a scale model train for shooting the drug robbery.

The goofiest Melville; a criminal breaks into a train compartment with a giant magnet and I’m convinced that even audiences in 1972 weren’t fooled by a model helicopter and train posing as the real thing.

Trop trop bien, les costumes mon dieu