Whatever happened to the bird? We'll never know. :(

Cool, unflappable and eeriely precise, just like the main character. Not much drama or emotion; more detached and aestheticized, almost ritualistic. Vision of the gangster as a post-Existentialist French dandy.

Compared to a lot of regular gangster movies, Le Samouraï is stripped of all excess fat and distracting stylistic additions, and it's all the better for it. Delon is a great choice to portray an interesting character with fairly limited dialogue who is put into an impossible situation. The muted colors and great camerawork boost the pervasive sense of isolation and paranoia. This movie is the standard that any intelligent gangster movie should be measured against.

Alain Delon's Jef Costello is one of the coolest characters of film I've ever seen. His stone-faced, cool as a cucumber demeanor is so entertaining. We aren't told much about him explicitly, but rather we come to understand him by watching the way he works. Just as Costello is methodical in his meticulous planning, the film is methodically directed with a deliberate pace that allows the visuals - not excessive dialog - to create the mood and tell the story.

Daring timing. A modern day French samurai minimalist. A bare palette of color and dialogue.

I really liked the opening shot and expected to love the film, but (on first viewing) I can't say that I did. Delon is indeed very cool, though, and I quite enjoyed it.

Melville at the top, sober, precise, efficient.

Wow PSI was way off for this one. Yes this film has lots of style, and some nice tension during certain scenes, but I was hoping for far more substance in the plot and characters than was delivered. The decisions made by the main character toward the end make no sense and are not explained at all. Actually no character's motivations are explored or revealed at all at any point in the film. Disappointing.

the most perfect movie ever

Melville take his influences from film-noir and use in a film that seems like a simple,over-stylized crime thriller,but turns out to be one of the greatest existential dramas in history of cinema.Maybe Delon's finest performance ever.

Rather sluggish--indeed, downright glacial ("Be amazed as he feeds his bird! Thrill to him riding the subway!..."). But fairly absorbing throughout, although the movie probably hews too closely to its central conceit to really take wing and go anywhere. Features several striking-looking women (and that black babe can certainly tickle the ivories).

Jef Costello. Cool character or coolest character?

It has the sense of desperation and delusion that culminates in the last scene that's so characteristic of noir plots, but that's matched in intensity by very few others. Soundtrack, cinematography, Delon's acting, and a great, minimalistic camerawork all reinforce the atmosphere of this true classic.

Hip film about a very cool hit man who has a code and lives by it.

Low key and perfect.

Stylish, interesting, definitely original. The 60's vibe was certainly very charming. However, with that ending, WTF! Kind of disappointed, actually. I watched this because of Criticker, and in most cases, it has been right on the money, but I must say that in this case, mmmm, not so much.

229

An elegy on the American gangster genre by Melville (note to the unwary: no actual sword-wielding samurai are to be found herein). The opening 20 minutes or so are as smoothly tooled as any stretch of cinema you could ever hope to see, with each shot clicking into place with incontrovertible finality. The story interest tails off after that, but the character interest (or rather, stereotype interest) holds up all the way to the monkish hitman's ritualistic self-sacrifice.

Melville's style appeals to me so much. There's something about his precise way of filming things that I just love. Alain Delon is just impossibly cool, and I mean in both senses of the word.

This film is infused with an otherworldly calm, as Delon's Costello slides through it with chilling grace. The thoughtful pace of the film heightens the anticipation, just as its smooth soundtrack punctuate the powerfully subtle emotions of its players. This masterpiece is rounded out with an effortless minimalism that makes the ideal canvas for this portrait of raw will crafted into a stark idealism that is enviable, pitiable, and melancholic. Weeping or exuberation would feel like betrayal.

A genre movie, with a script incorporating many genre conventions. It is the style of directing that takes command in this case, and the script is sparse and gentle enough to allow it to breathe. Through use of a predominantly greyscale color scheme in full color photography, Melville manages to nod to old noir/crime flicks while also creating a unique atmosphere of his own. The sets, staging and photography are painstakingly designed to achieve the aesthetic mystique of a great painting.

Stylish, cold, not "cool".