Review of Le Samouraï (1967) by Jack G — 18 Jun 2008

Jean-Pierre Melville's ultra slick film Le Samourai is credited as being the chief influence on many action and crime directors such as the highly accredited John Woo. It stars Alain Delon as an assassin who after fulfilling a contract within the first fifteen or so minutes of the film finds himself being interrogated but, being the professional that he is, manages to escape any sort of prosecution but is still stalked by a hardened police chief. Of course the story unfolds into more layers adding moments of intense suspense, action and romance with treachery and deceit.

Le Samourai is a film which speaks more through action than with real dialogue and itâ??s all the stronger for it. The main character (Jef Costello) doesnâ??t need to speak. When the film opens up the camera is still looking out into an apartment. All of a sudden a billow of smoke rises from over the bed and we see the outline of a person. All of a sudden he rises and we see it is a man dressed very well in a nice suite with a cigarette in his mouth. He walks over the wall, puts on his fedora and coat and heads out. Jef then makes his way a car parked on the sidewalk and takes out a ring of keys attempting to see which one fits with the car. When he goes into a friends garage with the stolen car, the man immediately changes the plates and when their done and Jef reaches out for what seems to be a handshake, the man puts a gun in his hand. All of this is said without a word of dialogue and yet none of the weight is lost, in fact it becomes much more engaging. Overall a fantastic film with tremendous plenty of style and characters, a film not concerned with the oblivious as the style rests in the details of the film and the intelligence of the plot.